World Enough and Time Old Version
by smidget
Summary: Currently being rewritten. Fine the new and improved version on my profile. Feb. 8. 2012.
1. Chapter 1

**IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ.**

**I am in the process of rewriting this story, smoothing out some plot points and the writing. You can find the new and improved version on my profile and I highly recommend you read that one instead. Updates will be fairly quick and the story will be, I hope, a more enjoyable read than this one. I know hardly anyone knows about this story anyway, but it's a fun little project I've given myself and I hope you'll check it out.**

**While I hope you'll read the new one, I will be leaving this one up exactly as it is.**

**-February 8, 2012**

**Disclaimer- I own nothing.**

**Chapter One – Waking Up**

Lily woke slowly, pulling the heavily layered linen covers closer to her body in an attempt to hold in the warmth. The pillow beneath her head was a bit lumpy but otherwise comfortable and she buried her face deeper into it. She kept her eyes closed hoping that she would drift back into sleep. She couldn't remember what she had been dreaming about, which was strange, but it didn't worry her. Lily's sleepy mind was more concerned with the light tick tick tick sounding near her right ear.

For a moment, Lily couldn't place the sound, but she soon identified it as the soft tick of the second hand on her watch. Her mother, Ginny Potter, had given her that watch and Lily kept obsessively good care of it. Al and James always made fun of her but she would still strap it carefully onto her wrist in the morning and she was careful not to bang it or scratch it on anything during the day. And every night she would take it off and place it carefully on the nightstand beside her bed. She never went to sleep with it on.

And yet, here she was, drifting between being awake and asleep and it was clearly strapped to her wrist, ticking away.

Lily opened her eyes as this thought occurred to her but immediately shut them again due to a bright white glare that had flashed at her eyes. Taking more care to shield her eyes from the light, she rolled onto her back and lifted her arm over her face causing the muscles in her shoulder to twinge painfully. She winced slightly. Lily slowly peeked through her eyelids and found her surroundings to be made up of a starchy white- the ceiling, the walls- all lit with the bright afternoon sun. Lily's mind was still foggy with sleep and she furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. Where was the scarlet canopy of the four-poster in her dorm?

The tight braid she had put in her hair the day before was now tousled and fell into her eyes so that she saw scraggly curtains of red as she gradually lifted herself into a sitting position. She felt sore all over for some reason but found that there were no obvious bruises or abrasions after a quick inspection. It was as if she had severely over-exerted herself. But what had she been doing yesterday that had caused her to feel this way? Classes, quidditch practice… nothing out of the ordinary, was there?

Trying to recall the day before, a sharp pain suddenly pounded in her head and Lily couldn't stop herself from letting out a slight moan. She gripped her head with both hands until the pain subsided. Breathing a little harder than usual and unable to move freely without pain, Lily took the opportunity to more closely survey her surroundings in an attempt to find some clue as to where she was. However, it didn't take long to pin down her location. With a quick glance around the long room, there was no doubt that she was lying in Hogwart's hospital wing. The numerous beds that lined the walls were all empty except for the one she occupied. And although it was clearly nearing midday outside, Lily couldn't hear any signs of movement in the ward or from the grounds below the open windows. It was nearly silent.

She wondered if the students would be in the Great Hall for lunch. Surely there would be some students enjoying what appeared to be wonderful weather, taking a stroll about the grounds or dipping their feet in the lake. The sky she could glimpse through the tall windows was a brilliant blue and a breeze was coming in from the one open window. Lily glanced down at her watch to see what time it was- half past eleven.

A cough and a rustle of clothing sounded from Madame Pomfrey's office at the other end of the wing and Lily's head spun in the direction of the noise. The matron shuffled out of her office, her arms full of potions and parchment. She headed straight to the store cupboard in the corner and set the things down on a nearby table. She must have caught sight of Lily sitting up out of the corner of her eye because she suddenly straightened and said, "Oh, good. You're awake."

Lily nodded, but didn't say anything. Madame Pomfrey looked different. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but there was definitely something off about her. Bustling over and placing a hand on Lily's shoulder, the nurse removed her wand from her pocket. Lily eyed it with a bit of suspicion. With a few of the usual waves and jabs, the matron nodded and looked up.

"I told the headmaster I would let him know when you woke." Her tone was very formal and Lily wondered if she had done something to upset the nurse. They had always been on fairly good terms and Lily had landed herself in the hospital wing often enough to say that she warranted more than the cool, distant tone and lack of eye contact that she was receiving. Lily was feeling very disoriented.

She watched as Madame Pomfrey walked briskly from the ward and into the corridor beyond. Her musings on the interaction she had just had were interrupted by a sudden realization. Madame Pomfrey had said headmaster. But Hogwarts didn't have a headmaster. Minerva McGonagall was headmistress of Hogwarts and had been for what Lily could remember and since before even Teddy had gone off to Hogwarts.

Frustrated that she couldn't pull up any memory of how she had gotten here and frustrated that nothing was seeming to fit into place, Lily fell back onto her pillow with a sigh, waiting for… whoever was coming. She didn't feeling up to getting out of bed just at the moment. It was a few minutes later that she heard footsteps coming down the corridor. From what she could tell, there were two people and they were walking quickly. She sat back up, hoping to see a familiar (friendly) face, but she was to be disappointed.

What she did see made her let out a slight gasp before her hand clapped over her mouth. She was looking into the eyes of a dead man.

* * *

Albus Severus Potter woke to a rough hand shaking his shoulder. He swatted it away and rolled over.

"Al! Wake up!" The whispered voice was hoarse and urgent. Al twisted onto his side and squinted at the form next to him. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he recognized Neville Longbottom standing next to him. What was Neville doing in the dorm rooms?

"What?" His voice was scratchy from sleep and he cleared his throat. Neville looked troubled. "What's wrong?"

"Come on, not here" the professor said, and didn't speak again. He face was taught and his hands were wringing nervously. Something was definitely off. Al didn't argue but instead got out of bed and straightened himself out before following Professor Longbottom from the dorm and down through the common room. The fire had completely died and it was dark but for the moonlight coming in from the windows. Al shivered slightly.

A few minutes later, Neville had led Albus through the chilly corridors and they reached Professor McGonagall's office. As they waited for the stone gargoyle to move aside, Al looked up at his surrogate uncle and frowned at the grim expression he saw there. "Whatever it is, I didn't do it."

Neville didn't laugh- he didn't even smile. But Al wasn't entirely discouraged. He was only half-joking anyway.

"No," Neville replied, "I'm sure you didn't." His voice was sincere and grave and Al felt something lodge up in his throat. Something really was wrong. Neville wouldn't look at him as they ascended the stairs to the round office that waited above. Albus stepped nervously inside, Neville on his heels. Professor McGonagall was sitting behind the great wooden desk, her lips pursed and her hands folded. Silence surrounded the three of them for a moment and Al awkwardly slipped into one of the high-backed chairs facing the headmistress. He felt Neville walk up behind him.

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall began. "Albus."

Al noticed the portrait behind Professor McGonagall give a slight cough and he knew it to be his namesake. Albus Dumbledore appeared to be asleep against the frame of the picture quite like all the other former headmasters and headmistresses that lined the walls, but Al knew that they didn't sleep half as much as they pretended to.

Al replied hesitantly to Professor McGonagall, who appeared to be waiting for him to speak. He felt that he was on very unfamiliar ground here, despite having been called to this office on numerous previous occasions. "Yes?"

"It's your sister."

Al's hands went slightly numb as they gripped the arms of the chair. "My sister, Professor?"

Professor McGonagall looked him straight in the eyes and said, "I'm afraid she's missing."

* * *

"Albus Dumbledore is dead."

Lily's arms were crossed tightly in irritation. She had been speaking with… with some imposter for the last quarter of an hour, and his calm refusal to recognize the fact that he was impersonating a dead man- one of the greatest men who ever lived- was grating on her thin patience. This simply couldn't be the man Lily had heard so much about, the man one of her brothers was named after. She simply wouldn't believe it.

Madame Pomfrey had left for her office when she had arrived back at the hospital wing with whoever this man was. The fact that the matron had seemed so calm about the situation, the way that she was acting as if nothing were out of the ordinary, further convinced Lily that something was very much amiss. The Poppy Pomfrey Lily knew would never stand for someone impersonating the late Albus Dumbledore.

He was asking her the strangest questions too. How did you happen upon the Hogwarts grounds? Why is it that you are wearing a uniform and yet are not enrolled? What was this? She had been attending Hogwarts for coming on six years now. So instead of addressing the inquiries set to her by the stranger with the beard, Lily set to her own interrogation. She wanted to know whom she was talking to, why he was asking her these questions, and how she had gotten here.

At her blunt statement, the blue eyes looking back at her clouded over for a brief moment. They had been quite piercing just a moment ago and Lily was doing her best not to look away.

"I'm afraid I don't agree," the man stated, no sign of irritation or anger crossing his features.

Lily snorted slightly. "I don't know who you think you're kidding. The man's been dead for… what? Over twenty years now?"

The man seemed to take in the statement for a moment and then said, "Tell me your name, and I will gladly tell you mine." There was no taunt in his voice, no challenge, no laugh. It was an honest proposition and Lily felt herself responding in spite of herself.

"Lily." At least she only gave her first name. She had that much restraint.

The man's lips turned up a bit as if in a smile and his gaze, once again, seemed to be looking into her. "Just 'Lily'," he said. "Nothing more."

"Well, it's quite a long name, you see."

A real smile this time from the man. "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore."

For a second, Lily was caught off guard by the tone in which he rattled off the long name. It was almost sing-songy and it reminded her of the Dumbledore that she had heard of in her father's stories. But her common sense pushed that thought aside as she said, "No, you're not."

"Then may I ask, why would I pretend to be someone you are quite certain died before you were even born? Surely there would be very little to gain out of such a cheap trick."

This was precisely what Lily had been trying to work out from the moment she had seen him walk through the doors of the hospital wing. Why would someone impersonate a man so well known and so obviously dead? It wouldn't fool anyone with half a brain and then where would they be? Lily refrained from answering his question, remaining stubbornly silent as she stared at him.

He looked at her and said, "Just a name, child."

She looked him straight in the eyes. She knew that Albus Dumbledore was one of the most skilled Legimens in history and she knew he would attempt to see if she was lying as soon as she said her name. But she wasn't going to lie. She wasn't going to pretend to be someone else when she was accusing this man of doing the very same thing. Lily took a slow, deep breath and then let it out again.

"Lily Patrice… Potter."

The blue eyes flashed for a moment and he looked her in the eyes. He studied her face for a moment as if looking for something, but he didn't say anything in response. "Look into my mind," Lily prompted. "I'm not lying."

"No," he said gravely, "and neither am I. Which puts us in quite the situation, does it not?"

* * *

"Missing?" Albus didn't care that his voice shook as the word came out. His baby sister was missing?

Professor McGonagall's eyes softened briefly as she gazed at the student before her. Neville's hand had dropped onto his shoulder and the grip tightened as Al spoke. But Al didn't understand why they were being so… serious about all this. Surely Lily wasn't really missing like they insisted. Sure, it was the middle of the night and she wasn't in her bed. It wouldn't be the first time she had sneaked out at night in her five years of being here. So he told them as much, knowing that they already knew.

"We've searched the whole castle. She's not here." Neville was lying. He had to be lying.

"Then she's off in Hogsmeade."

Professor McGonagall was shaking her head. "No."

Al didn't realize that he was becoming quite frantic. He looked wildly between the two Professors, both of whom he had known for a long time, not understanding why they were telling him these things. "How can you be sure?" he demanded. "How can you be sure she's not here if you don't know where she is?" His voice was almost a shout but he didn't care. How could they have just pronounced his little sister missing when they didn't even really look? If they had looked they would have found her, they would have given her detention and that would be the end of it. This was just some elaborate hoax. Why were they saying that his sister was missing?

"I'm afraid it's not a question of where, Al."

Al's head swiveled around to face Neville, a look of confusion on his face. Did they know where she was? Why hadn't they said so? What was going on? "What do you mean?" But it was McGonagall who answered. She pulled a box in front of her from the side of the desk. Al hadn't noticed it there when he walked in. He hadn't really noticed much at all. In any case, the box looked entirely unimportant. But the headmistress's fingers wrapped tightly around the sides as though it held something of vital importance. Perhaps it did.

"It's not a question of where. It's a question of when."

Having no answer to this, and not entirely understanding what she was getting at, Al leaned forward in his chair to see what was in the box. Professor McGonagall handed it to him and Albus slowly lifted the lid. The first thing he noticed inside was the Marauder's Map. This surprised him because he had lost it a few months before. He had felt awful losing it, knowing how much it had meant to his dad and knowing how much it had meant to Teddy (who had passed it onto the Potter children after leaving Hogwarts). He had been sneaking to the kitchens after curfew and Filch had confiscated it. It had, thankfully, been blank at the time, but the grumpy old caretaker had taken it nonetheless and neither he nor Lily had had the opportunity to steal it back yet. Lily would have told him if she had it back.

But there it was in the box. Al made a mental note to scour the map for "Lily Potter" at the earliest opportunity but he didn't push the matter at the moment in front of two professors that, as far as he knew, didn't know how it worked. Neville might, being such good friends with his dad, but he didn't say anything. Al returned his focus to the matter at hand. The map was not the only thing in the box. There was also a copious amount of fine, white sand piled in the bottom and spread throughout the box. Mixed with the sand were some shards of thin, broken glass. He didn't understand.

Albus looked up at the Professors, confused. But then he suddenly understood. "It's a question of when." These were the shattered remains of a time turner.

Well, here it is. DH compliant and all. Ever so much thanks to Ellaminnowpea for being a wonderful beta! Stay tuned for more and please review!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two- Impossible**

"We were hoping, Mr. Potter, that you would have some explanation for us, but it is clear that this is not the case. So we will wait for your parents to arrive to discuss this further."

It was clear from Professor McGonagall's tone that she was deeply troubled. Her voice had the slightest tremor and Al was sure that if he looked up he would see clear signs of strain on her face and in her posture- pursed lips, labored breathing. But Al did not look up.

He stared at his shoes, his dark hair falling in front of his eyes. It was black like his father's and slightly untidy. It had always been apparent that he had more resemblance to his dad than James or Lily did. People always told him so- that he looked just like his father, right down to the green eyes. He was the only Potter child to have inherited the bright green shade and because he didn't wear glasses it was quite noticeable. James and Lily were both more of an even mix of his parents and both had inherited their mother's brown eyes. Lily was the only one to have red hair. It was the classic Weasley shade but still untidy, something that had always annoyed her. James was constantly ruffling her hair and it drove her mad.

The three of them, Al, Professor Longbottom, and Professor McGonagall, waited in silence for his parents to arrive by floo. Neville had dispatched a Patronus message to Harry and Ginny a few minutes before, revealing very little about the reason they were needed at Hogwarts. Neville seemed keen to leave Professor McGonagall with breaking the news, and neither he nor Al envied her in the slightest.

As he sat there, Al pondered the mysterious contents of the box in his lap. He just sat, staring, as if the parchment and sand inside could reveal all the secrets of his sister's disappearance. He hadn't had any idea where the time turner had come from or why it was found with the map or where – no, _when_ – Lily was. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that she wasn't _here_. His sister wasn't anywhere in the world at all at that moment and that thought terrified him. Al supposed in the back of his mind that he didn't really want to understand the grim reality pressing in on him from all sides. She was his little sister. Wasn't it his job to protect her? What a bang up job he'd done… James would have his head. He had thought the same thing when he'd lost the map but somehow that seemed so irrelevant now.

Al's thoughts turned to the map. It appeared that Neville knew what was on his mind when he asked, "Al, are sure you can't tell us about that parchment?"

Al sighed. "It… I… I think Lily may have been looking for it and that's why she was out of bed in the middle of the night. I think Filch had it. I _know_ Filch had it."

The headmistress's eyes narrowed as she gazed in his direction. He supposed that he hadn't been very informative. But how could he explain and give up such a family secret? While he struggled inwardly at what to say Professor McGonagall turned to Neville.

"Professor Longbottom, if you would kindly fetch Mr. Filch? Perhaps he would be able to give us some more information on the matter."

Something seemed to lodge up in Al's throat. And as he thought about it, really, what was a family secret in comparison to family? It would be stupid not to speak up if it meant possibly helping Lily.

"There's no need," he said as Neville was in the process of opening the office door. "I know what it is."

The two professors looked at him expectantly and he sighed again. What did it really matter? His shoulders slumped and his voice hollow Al said, "It's a map. A map of Hogwarts." Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows while Neville remained expressionless. "But it doesn't just show… Hogwarts. It shows everyone _in_ Hogwarts as well. And it never lies."

Neville seemed entirely unsurprised by this information. Apparently he knew _of_ the map but not enough to recognize it. Professor McGonagall was a little more shocked. "Mr. Potter do you realize--"

"What I realize," said Al, cutting her off, "is that if Lily's in the castle, she's on the map."

Oddly, neither of them pressed him for how to operate the map just then for which Al was quite grateful. Although he knew that as soon as his parents arrived the subject would come back up again, Al didn't think he could take the disappointment of the absence of the name _Lily Potter_ on the old, yellowing face of the parchment.

Simultaneously, Al both anticipated and dreaded the arrival of his parents in the office. He feared that everything from the night would become all too real to him. Al shuddered a little as he imagined his parent's reactions. They would be beyond upset at first- almost inconsolable- but his dad _was_ Harry Potter and that had to count for something, didn't it? How many times had he heard the remarkable tales about the legendary Harry Potter? His dad had done the impossible before. He would bring Lily back to them.

But right now he was terrified for Lily. For a fifth year she had quite a lot of magic under her belt already. She was a good witch with a sharp mind. She would be fine. She had to be- at least until they got her back. Which was _going_ to happen. Before he knew it, she would back, studying frantically for her OWLs with all the other fifth years and practicing for the quidditch final. It would be her and Albus and James again. The thought of James distracted Albus from his more hopeful train of thought. How would James react to hearing of Lily's disappearnce if he were here? Would mom and dad tell him? What about Teddy? He was practically family and he and Lily had always been close, like brother and sister.

The more Al thought about his family, the more he wanted to just push it all away. He wanted to be back in his bed, sound asleep, never having been woken by Professor Longbottom and told that his sister was missing.

Light was creeping into the sky slowly. The dark shapes of the ground and the quidditch pitch that could be seen from the headmistress's window were becoming more distinct. The office was lightly up with a gentle, yellow glow. But suddenly the soft light was disrupted by green flames springing up in the fireplace and Harry stumbled slightly as he stepped out of the fireplace and onto the carpet. Al held back a smile at the thought that his dad had never quite gotten the hang of floo powder. Al looked at his dad for a moment but couldn't catch his eye because Harry had turned around, facing the fireplace and waiting for his wife. Ginny Potter came a few seconds later and she stumbled slightly as well. Harry caught her deftly in his arms and Ginny smiled up at him as she righted herself.

When both husband and wife were standing firmly on the office carpet, Harry took a look around. He looked worried, but not overly so. It wasn't often that Al saw his father without a level head and he didn't expect it for the moment. Al was well aware of the fact that it wasn't the first time the Potters had been called into this office since James (and even Teddy) had started Hogwarts, but it wasn't even properly morning yet and all the faces in the room were grave.

"What's going on?"

As Al watched his Professor, Neville seemed to struggle to look Harry in the face. No words came out despite his mouth opening and closing more than once. The silence between the old friends grew thicker and then Ginny spoke up. "What is it, Neville?"

The two parents both looked at Albus, worry written on their faces. Harry put a hand on his son's shoulder and an arm around his wife, who crossed her arms. "Is Al okay?" Ginny looked around the office. "Is Lily okay?"

At Lily's name, Al flinched slightly. He looked up at his parents. "I'm fine," he said, his voice quiet but sincere. Harry's hand squeezed his shoulder slightly before he turned to look between Neville and Professor McGonagall, who had remained silent so far. The headmistress was ruffled and seemed to be waiting for the appropriate time to enter in the conversation. It occurred to Al that he had no idea what he would do in the headmistress's position. How do you tell parents that their child has gone missing under their care?

Ginny was becoming impatient and slightly panicky as no one was speaking up. Everyone looked nervous. "If Al is fine then is something wrong with Lily? Where is she?"

"We… don't know if Lily's all right." Ginny's eyes narrowed severely at Neville's statement and Al saw her grip Harry's arm. Al thought it wasn't the most tactful way to phrase it, but it was true. He turned to look at Professor McGonagall, wondering if she would speak up. She was watching the scene with a very grim expression.

Harry's expression became more desperate, his focus fixed on his old friend. "Where's my daughter, Neville? Where's my little girl?" But Neville didn't answer. He looked over at the headmistress for support, his shoulders slumped a little and his eyes a little lost. Neville was shaken and it made Al uneasy to see such a reaction from him. Al realized his hands were shaking slightly and he gripped them together in an effort to hide it.

Finally, Professor McGonagall spoke up and Al braced himself for the worst. "Lily is… somewhere in time," she said bluntly, but with a softness in her voice that Al was not accustomed to. She pushed the box toward the expectant Potters. "We don't know when's she's gone, but she isn't here anymore."

* * *

Lily had been in this office on a number of occasions. She knew it to be slightly less eccentric than what she was looking at now though. There were all manners of odd objects throughout the room, strange silver things that whirred or hummed. There were the usual books and portraits that covered the walls, but there was one portrait that was missing. Albus Dumbledore was not immortalized on canvas in the office, snoozing lightly, but was sitting in front of her where she was used to seeing Minerva McGonagall, and he was looking very alert and quite… alive. 

Most of Lily's discomfort lay in the heavy silence filling the room. It had been there since the pair had entered and sat down and the only faint sound was the ticking of Lily's watch. But the cushioned chair she was sitting in wasn't helping matters. While she felt as though she would like to sink into the floor and disappear the chair didn't allow for a slouch.

She didn't know why, but Lily was very inclined to believe that the man in front of her _was_, as he claimed, Albus Dumbledore. She had never even met him, seeing as how he was killed before she was even born, but she felt as though she knew him. It was probably all the stories that her dad told; there was just something so familiar about his face, his mannerisms. That twinkle in his eyes.

The would-be Dumbledore leaned forward in his chair slightly, one arm covering the other so that only one hand was visible. Lily coughed awkwardly and started to fiddle with the strap of her watch. Dumbledore followed her gaze. "Do you happen to have the time, Ms. Potter?"

Lily looked up into his face again, a skeptical expression on her face. She didn't really see how this was relevant. But Dumbledore just sat there calmly, one hand resting over the other, waiting.

Lily glanced down at her watch and said, "It's almost ten in the morning." But that sounded off for some reason. It wasn't right, was it? She _knew_ it wasn't right- she had looked at her watch when she woke up in the hospital wing. She had thought it was strange that she had slept with it on, and she had looked down and it had been half past _eleven_. "No."

She looked more carefully at her watch. 9:53. She peered at it more carefully still and gasped. The second hand was moving steadily with its usual _tick tick tick_ in the _wrong direction_. She looked up at the man in front of her and said in a tone of amazement, "My watch. It's going _backwards_."

"Fascinating." He paused. "What time do you _think_ it is?"

Lily shrugged again, more concerned with why her watch was acting up than what time it actually was. "I don't know. Around noon, I guess."

"You'll find that there is more to time than just the hour and the minute." There was that twinkle again. He was leading her.

But Lily wasn't in the mood for this and chose to focus her attention on the object on her wrist instead. She tapped the glass that covered the face of the watch, becoming more frustrated with each _tick_ that went by backwards. "More to time?" she asked, without looking up. "What, like the date? It's Tuesday. April… tenth." Why wasn't it _working?_

"Of what _year_, Ms. Potter?"

Lily looked up, her hand paused in the effort of fixing her watch. Was he crazy? Well, she had always heard that Dumbledore had been a little… eccentric. But she still paused, considering the man before here. "What kind of question is that?"

Those blue eyes looked directly into hers and there was no smile on his face. "The right one, I believe."

* * *

Al had heard the story once of the time his dad had trashed Albus Dumbledore's office. Silver trinkets shattered, tables overturned, the whole bit. But it had been a little hard to believe. Harry Potter was a very levelheaded, cheerful guy. Al was hard put to find anyone more in love with life or his family, more content and caring of the people he loved. However, he now believed every word of that story. As he looked around the headmistress's office, it was strange to see it in such disarray. Professor McGonagall still sat behind her desk looking quite frazzled. She had had to adopt a very sharp tone with his dad before his misplaced emotional magic tore the whole room apart. Harry had looked sheepish and Ginny had pulled him down to sit next to her on the couch against the far wall. 

It was deathly quiet in the room now. Harry was leaning forward, his hands covering his eyes, fingers reaching up to grasp at his hair, his elbows on his knees. Ginny was leaning into him, her head in her shoulder, and arm wrapped around his back. She was murmuring something in his ear, but only Harry could hear it. Al was still sitting in the same chair. He was feeling very claustrophobic in the office all of a sudden and was finding it a little difficult to breathe. He almost preferred the commotion of a few moments before to the awkward, hopeless void was now settling in his chest. No one was looking at each other. When was someone going to say something?

Neville rubbed his eyes and then turned his head to gaze out the window through which bright, strong morning light was now shining. He then turned to Professor McGonagall and said, "What are we going to do?"

But it wasn't McGonagall who answered, it was Harry. He didn't lift his head and his voice was muffled but the other occupants of the room could clearly make out the words and Al felt his stomach clench when he heard them. "What _can_ we do?"

Ginny's arm gripped more firmly around her husband and she squeezed her eyes shut as if to stop tears from flowing out. The scene of his parents looking so vulnerable made Al feel even worse, which he hadn't thought was possible. As the room became silent again, Al went over everything he had heard that morning so far as if to find a hidden answer somewhere.

As far as anyone knew, Lily had been out in the castle in the middle of the night- not an unlikely occurrence. Perhaps she had been sneaking out to retrieve the map from Filch's office and that was why it was found with her. But where had the time turner come from? The only time he knew of any Hogwarts student having a time turner was his Aunt Hermione when she had taken so many classes she nearly went insane. But even though Lily was in her OWL year, she wasn't taking that many classes and it hadn't seemed to Al that she was having any more trouble than anyone else in her year with keeping up with the massive amounts of work. So where did the time turner come in?

Maybe if they could figure that out, they could figure out what had happened to his sister.

* * *

Lily stared silently at the man before her, the question of what year it was hanging between the two of them. It wasn't the question that was important, it was what it implied. For a moment, Lily was inclined to toss such an absurd idea aside. _There's no way that_…. But as she looked at the man before her, a man that was, as far as she could tell, either Albus Dumbledore, or a flawless impersonator, she began to think that maybe it wasn't such a crazy idea after all. She swallowed heavily, took a deep breath and said, "You think I traveled through time, don't you?"

It sounded even stupider out loud than it had in her head.

But there was no sign of laughter on the face before her, no sign of surprise, which told Lily that this was _exactly_ what he thought had happened.

"That's impossible!"

Her heart started to beat a little faster even though she was telling herself that it couldn't be true. Because it _couldn't_.

"I'm afraid our circumstances tell a different story."

_He was being awfully calm about this!_

"People don't _travel through time_. I mean, there are time turners I suppose, but they only work for a few hours and I don't even _have_ one and-" Lily felt like throwing her arms up in sudden frustration. Why was she even considering the possibility? It was insane! She had _not_ gone back in time over _twenty years_! This was some crazy dream, some stupid prank.

Dumbledore- it was easier just to think of him that way- was looking at her carefully. She was finding it hard to look him in the eye for some reason. She went to run her hand through her hair, but it got tangled due to the fact that it was still tied into the sloppy braid. She blushed slightly as she untangled her hand from her hair and then took to looking at her knees. She couldn't seem to sit still, but her legs refused to move her into a standing position. And Lily had the feeling that even if she did get up and make her way over to the door she would find that Dumbledore was not going to let her leave until they had sorted this out.

"If, as you claim, I have been dead for over twenty years," Dumbledore began, speaking calmly for someone talking about his own death, "and if, as I claim, I am alive and well, then we cannot both be telling the truth except in one very special case." Alive and well. For the first time, Lily took a really good look at the man in front of her. His face was held in an expression of attention and thought. His arms were crossed in front of him, one hand covering the other and Lily couldn't stop a light gasp when she glimpsed something black and gnarled where his left hand should have been. He noticed her looking and a slight smile crossed his face for a moment.

"Ah," he said with a little nod. "You're not the first to notice, I assure you."

Lily couldn't help staring just a little. "But what happened to your –"

"This is not the time for that story." His tone was very final- not harsh, just final. Lily nodded and didn't ask again, though she couldn't help glancing at the subject in question every once in a while. She just hoped she wasn't too obvious.

"There is one story I would like to hear, however," Dumbledore said. "How did you get here, Ms. Potter?"

Again, Lily set her mind to trying to recall what had happened the night before. A throbbing pain began in her head and she closed her eyes. She remembered going to classes that day because Oscar had spilt his potion all over the dungeon floor and it eroded the bottom of the tables away. She remembered dinner because Josh Robins had sat next to her and they talked about quidditch and Hugo had made faces at her from a few seats down. She hadn't been looking forward to writing the paper Neville had set them in Herbology. She had been putting it off and it was due the next day, but Lily _didn't_ remember working on it last night. She didn't remember anything after dinner.

Finally, the throbbing in her head reached a point at which she could no longer coherently gather her thoughts and Lily opened her eyes to see Dumbledore looking back at her, some concern on his face. How did she know she could trust any of this to be true if she couldn't even remember how she had gotten here in the first place? How could she trust anyone she came in contact with? When was she going to wake up from this weird and horrible dream? Well, that was the question, wasn't it? _When?_

"Ms. Potter?"

"How do I know I can trust you?" she asked slowly. "How can I know that you are who you say you are, that I really have somehow fallen back in time? That's absurd! How do I know that you're telling the truth?" Her voice was raising in pitch and her breath was shortening. She wanted to go home, she wanted to wake up! But she took a deep breath and paused, willing herself not to lose control. Her next words were very calm, low spoken.

"How can I know that you're really Albus Dumbledore?"

There had to be some way to prove that the man in front of her really was Dumbledore. Lily remembered her dad telling her about how things had been back before the war ended. You couldn't trust anyone. They had questions that they asked each other- random, detailed questions. It was to prove that you were who you said you were, a way to identify people. Well, her dad had told her hundreds of stories about Dumbledore! She had to be able to think of something!

Dumbledore seemed know what she was doing and was waiting patiently as Lily gazed around the room, looking for inspiration. There were the portraits all along the walls. She saw Phineas Nigellus in his usual spot, and she was sure that he wasn't really asleep but glad that he was at least pretending. He wasn't very pleasant. There were also the scads of books that lined the walls. There were books on all sorts of subjects, of all shapes and sizes. It was hard to imagine how one could accumulate so many books in even such a long lifetime as Dumbledore had.

"_Daddy, why do did you bring socks?"_

_Harry smiled down at his daughter and placed the socks on the grave before them. "He never seemed to have enough of them. He said people always insisted on giving him books."_

"_And he wanted socks?" she asked._

"_Yes, Lily. He wanted socks." The two of them stood facing the white tomb, Lily not entirely understanding._

Lily looked up at the man before her.

"Quite a lot of books you have here," she began in what she hoped was a casual tone before pausing to gauge Dumbledore's reaction. It was clear that she had his full attention. "Some of them gifts, I'm sure. A lot of them probably." Lily was speaking slowly, hesitant that she would slip up. "But I'm sure you don't spend all your time just reading so I'm sure there are things you'd rather receive than simply… books." Lily held in her breath for a moment. Those blue eyes looked at her, and she looked back.

Dumbledore smiled reminiscently and said, "You know, I've always believed that despite all their usefulness, a book can never replace a good pair of socks."

Lily nodded, her head falling into her hands. She knew that this wasn't some dream that she was going to wake up from. It was strange, but Lily was suddenly very relieved to know that Albus Dumbledore was sitting in front of her. If anyone could return her to her own time, Lily had no doubt it would be this man.

"Can you tell me how you got here, Ms. Potter?"

Lily took her head out of her hands and looked desperately at the man across from her. "No," she said simply. "I can't." She saw that Dumbledore was about to reply but she cut him off before he could begin. "I don't remember," she said desperately. "I don't know how I got here." She paused. "Wher- when exactly am I?" she asked.

"It is April eleventh, Ms. Potter. And it is 1997."

* * *

**So, chapter two! Please let me know what you thougtht! Reviews are nice.**

**Huge, huge thanks to Ellaminnowpea for being an amazing, fantastic, stupendous beta!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three- Meals and Meetings**

_Come on, Lily. It's only breakfast._

Lily couldn't count the number of times she'd walked down to the Great Hall to have breakfast. Out of all those times however, this first time she'd only made it as far as the doors. She simply stood outside, frozen, her feet unwilling to move and her hands trembling. Lily's mind was racing as she leaned against the wall right outside the doorway. How many familiar faces would she see inside? How many did she _want_ to see? What Lily really wanted was to walk into the Great Hall and see Al sitting at the far end with his friends, as usual, and Hugo making faces at her.

It was certain that she would see a few familiar faces, but not the ones she was hoping for. Her mother and father were in that room, meters away, while Lily leaned against the cold stone wall of the entrance hall. Uncle Ron, Aunt Hermione, both of them would be there as well. And Al and Hugo and James and Rose and Teddy and _her_… none of them even existed yet. Lily shuddered at the thought.

Lily had woken up that morning hoping that the events of the previous day had been nothing more than a disturbing dream, the result of too many chocolate frogs before bed. But once again she had woken to the absence of familiar surroundings. An extra bed had been obtained for her and placed in the fifth year girls' dormitory in Gryffindor Tower but even though she knew Gryffindor Tower like the back of her hand, it felt different. Lily had spent most of the afternoon with the scarlet hangings pulled shut around her while she buried her face in her pillow and tried not to cry. She had drifted off to sleep without dinner and woken in the morning to find all other occupants of the room already gone. Lily was immeasurably thankful for this considering she was sharing a room with her future mother.

But Ginny Po- _Weasley_ wasn't her mother yet and Lily knew she mustn't think of her that way. She had to be careful to remember the cover story that Dumbledore had concocted the day before and not to let _anything_ slip. Hogwarts did not accept exchange or transfer students and so any possibility of her having previously attended somewhere like Beauxbatons was out of the question. She didn't speak French anyway. But Hogwarts was widely known as one of the safest havens in existence. And so Lily was now posing as the recently orphaned niece of Professor Minerva McGonagall who had no other family to turn to and was now staying with her aunt. Previously, she had been home schooled due to her parents' love of travelling. This also conveniently explained away any close family ties that may have been noticeably absent between McGonagall and her supposed siblings.

Of course, the plan did require that Professor McGonagall be aware of the current circumstances. Lily bit her lip and, out of habit, began twisting her hair through her fingers when she recalled their awkward meeting the day before. It had been right after leaving Dumbledore's office. It had been such a strange feeling for Lily, walking through corridors that she knew so well without seeing any familiar faces.

Professor McGonagall had been, understandably, quite disbelieving at first. Lily couldn't blame her.

"You expect me to believe that this is Harry Potter's daughter from the future?" she had asked, her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned.

_Well_, Lily had thought, _when you put it like that it does sound rather ridiculous_.

But Dumbledore had replied with a simple, "Yes." And McGonagall had nodded and that had been the end of it. The two professors had discussed the finer points of the arrangement while Lily sat in one of the desks, tracing small circles in the wood of the desktop and pretending not to notice as McGonagall stole furtive glances at her.

It suddenly occurred to Lily, standing outside the Great Hall, that she was not looking forward to attending transfiguration class. Although she was quite certain that all of her classes would be somewhat unpleasant with her mother sitting a few desks away, having her headmistress teaching her would be even stranger on top of everything else. Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath, thankful that it was Saturday.

When she opened her eyes again she saw a girl with long blond hair and wide blue eyes standing right in front of her, staring right back. Lily jumped in surprise. She hadn't heard anyone walk up.

In the awkward silence, Lily avoided making eye contact and shifted her weight back and forth from foot to foot. As the two of them stood there Lily surrepticiously took in the other girl's appearance. The crest on her robes told Lily that she was a Ravenclaw. Lily didn't know very many Ravenclaws aside from her cousin, Rose, but she did know that it wasn't common practice to where mismatched sneakers and turnip earrings. There was something almost whimsical about the girl and it made Lily relax a little even in the absence of conversation.

Finally, coming to the conclusion that the girl in front of her wasn't going to say anything anytime soon, Lily offered a quiet, "Hello."

The blond girl's head tilted slightly to the right and a dreamy smile appeared on her face. "Hello," she said serenely. "You'll want to be careful of the wrackspurts." She pointed above Lily's head and Lily looked up, not seeing anything.

Lily looked back at the girl in front of her and blinked.

"Wrackspurts?"

"Yes," said the girl without a trace of embarrassment, "they're invisible so you won't be able to see them, but I'm sure they're the reason you're here."

Lily's heart seemed to skip a beat and her mind rushed to an impossible conclusion. _The reason I'm here? Does she mean…?_ Lily studied the girl's face quickly, trying to determine if she was only joking, but that didn't appear to be the case.

Hesitantly, Lily asked, "Here?"

"In the entrance hall. Instead of in the Great Hall eating breakfast. The wrackspurts have you so distracted that you haven't even made it to your table yet."

Lily couldn't hold in a shaky laugh of relief and quickly decided that it would be prudent to change the subject. She cast around for something to say, something that had nothing to do with wrackspurts, and all she could come up with was "Erm… my name's Patrice." She tried to smile but found it to be rather difficult at the moment.

"I'm Luna," the blond girl said, "You must be Professor McGonagall's niece. I'm sorry to hear about your parents."

"Oh, me too." Lily coughed, her mind quickly catching up with her mouth. "I mean… yes, it's very sad."

Luna seemed not to hear her but was staring intently at Lily's face. "You don't look anything like Professor McGonagall, you know. You look more like my friend, Ginny."

Lily felt the air abandon her lungs as fast as all coherent thought fled her brain. She stood gaping for a brief moment before she said in a hurry, "I- I need to get to- I have to go." And with that, she hurried away towards Gryffindor Tower, looking back only once to see Luna whispering conspiratorially at the air over her head.

* * *

Despite the fact that Lily never did get around to eating any breakfast, once she made it into the Great Hall for lunch, she spent most of her time pushing her potatoes from one side of her plate to the other. She had not appetite. Her feet were scuffing back and forth on the stone floor and Lily could here her grandmother's voice in her head. _Those are new shoes, Lily Potter. Don't go scraping them up!_

Lily's eyes scanned the room casually and she noticed that the Great Hall was rather sparse. She supposed it was still a bit early for lunch and most students were probably enjoying the nice weather. Lily looked up at the vast ceiling of sky above her and noted absently that it looked to be good quidditch conditions.

_Maybe I'll go for a fly later_. The thought cheered her up only slightly but she began eating her food with a bit more enthusiasm. It did not last long however.

As she sat there, Lily thought about Monday when classes would resume. A heavy sense of dread sank in her stomach and her fork clattered down onto her plate as the realization hit her, once again, that this was not some kind of dream. If it was this hard to get through the morning just spending it in her dormitory, how was she ever going to make it through any classes? It wasn't just the idea of classes that had her upset, it was the fact that her fifteen-year-old mother would be in them as well. Lily put her face in her hands and wished she could make the world around her disappear.

When Lily and Dumbledore had discussed how to explain away any oddities in her sudden appearance, the issue of attending classes had come up. Lily hadn't really wanted to go for a few obvious reasons. She had tried to convince the headmaster that it would only create more problems, that she really shouldn't be out and about so much, attending classes and such, but he hadn't gone for the idea. Dumbledore had been quite firm on the matter that she try to maintain as much normalcy as possible. Lily didn't see anything normal about brewing potions or vanishing newts alongside her mother who was the _same age_ as her.

More and more students began filing into the Great Hall now, talking and laughing with their friends, and Lily stared pointedly down at her plate to avoid any accidental eye contact. Lily jumped as someone suddenly came to sit next to her, tapping her on the shoulder to get her attention. She glanced over at the new arrival and was struck with an overwhelming sense of familiarity.

"Hi," she said almost automatically to the boy on her right, hoping that this meeting wouldn't be quite as strange as the one she'd had earlier with Luna.

"Hi. I'm Neville."

_Oh, of course!_

Although she hadn't recognized him at first, the boy beside her was obviously Neville Longbottom. Lily was surprised that he looked so much less _confident_ than the Neville she knew.

"_I… grew up a lot in my last year at Hogwarts. We all did. We had to." Neville didn't say this with regret, it was merely fact._

"_Because of the war?" War was a foreign concept to Lily and she was very curious about it. Neville didn't miss the excited gleam in her eyes as she eagerly awaited more. He frowned slightly._

"_War changes people, Lily."_

Neville coughed lightly and Lily was drawn back to her current surroundings. She glanced over at Neville whose eyebrows were raised in expectation.

"Oh, right! I'm Patrice."

"Nice to meet you," Neville smiled and Lily smiled back, surprised at how easy this was. She wondered if it would be this easy to talk to her mum or dad when… if she came in contact with them. Her eyes traveled down the Gryffindor Table, which was rapidly filling up with students, and then…

There they were. They were sitting just down the table from where she and Neville were. Lily's eyes widened and her breathing shorted a little. She suddenly found that she couldn't tear her eyes away from her father's face, her mother's smile. She didn't even care that she was staring. She wanted to run to them, to fall into their arms and feel her father's embrace around her and hear her mother's soothing voice. Lily had never missed her parents more than she did at that moment, staring at them and unable to do anything.

Harry and Ginny were laughing a lot as they talked, clearly enjoying each other's company. Ron and Hermione seemed a bit more cordially distant with each other but the four of them together appeared to just be enjoying a casual lunch.

Neville noticed her stare and followed it down the table. He looked around for a few moments, but then caught sight of Harry and let out a knowing "oh." Nodding to himself, Neville let a somewhat indulgent smile take hold of his features. He rested his head in one hand and looked back at Lily, who was watching her mother pick the broccoli off of Harry's plate from across the table.

"Another one, hmm?"

Lily started and turned guiltily back towards Neville. "Another what?" she asked, confused.

"Another _fan_," he replied, nodding pointedly at Harry. "Never seen the famous Harry Potter?"

"Never like this," Lily replied faintly, unfazed by Neville's light teasing. Harry's young face broke into laughter again along with his friends. Neville laughed a little at her words and seemed unconcerned with her seemingly star-struck behavior.

"You'll have to get in line, I'm afraid."

Neville's off hand comment made Lily pause and think for a moment. What a strange idea, having to wait to see her father- her father who always had time for her, who would put off anything to be with her. _He's never made me wait before_, Lily thought and frowned.

But Neville, not noticing, pulled a plate a plate of chicken closer and poured himself a glass of pumpkin juice. He asked her about what classes she was taking, how she liked the castle so far. It was very casual stuff and Lily could almost forget about her problems. They didn't talk about Harry again for the rest of the meal and Lily didn't look again to where he had been sitting until he was gone.

* * *

"…_the time turner three times in order to achieve a temporal distance of two hours and fifty seven minutes due to…"_

_Thud._

Lily let her head fall onto the open book in frustration and boredom. However, the musty smell of the pages filled her nostrils quickly and she flung her head back again, coughing.

Lily had gotten tired of staring at the curtains of her four-poster and so she had decided to spend some time in the vast Hogwarts library. She assumed it would be fairly empty of students on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon and so she was almost as likely to avoid everyone else there as she would be in her bed up in Gryffindor Tower. And she thought she could put her time to something useful, something that might help her out of this ghastly situation she had landed herself in.

But it had turned out to be an unproductive few hours. She was now rereading the same paragraph for the fourth time and not taking in more than the first few words. Time travel was surprisingly _dull_ in theory.

Dinner, on the other hand, was a much more exciting prospect and so Lily returned the various books to their shelves and decided to make her way to the Great Hall again. She made her way easily through the corridors, thankful that even though she was over twenty years in the past (she shuddered at that thought) the layout of the castle was largely the same. It was nice to know that some things never changed.

Lily was about to turn into the next corridor when a splitting shriek met her ears and she froze in her steps.

"MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM! MURDER!"

Lily was running before she knew what was happening. She slid to an abrupt halt at the end of the corridor, peering around the corner. Immediately, she saw a man with dark hair and a thick black cloak rushing in her direction. For a moment, Lily thought he was coming after her before he took an abrupt turn into what Lily knew to be a bathroom.

It wasn't the bathroom that Moaning Myrtle usually occupied, but as Lily thought about it, that was definitely Myrtle screeching like that. Surely the ghost wasn't wandering the school bathrooms and making all this fuss over her own death from so many years ago? Had someone been picking on her again?

Deciding to go see what all the commotion was about, Lily stepped out around the corner and began walking briskly toward the bathroom. But she'd barely made it a few steps when the man she'd seen a moment ago, a man she could only assume was a professor, reappeared in the doorway supporting a boy with stark blond hair who was covered in blood. The boy was wavering in and out of consciousness and leaning heavily on the professor.

Lily took a few more steps forward, her mouth slightly open. She was going to ask if there was something she should do to help but never got the words out. The lopsided pair was approaching at a rapid pace and it only occurred to Lily to move out of their path when the professor practically snarled, "Out of the way!"

He glanced at her as he said this and as he saw her face he paused, almost stopping entirely and Lily froze as well. His face was pale and pasty and curtained by shiny black hair. Lily didn't recognize him. But the way he was looking at her seemed to imply that _he_ recognized _her_. He stared right into her brown eyes for a moment, frowning, before there was a loud groan from the boy in his arms.

"What are you doing," Lily asked incredulously. "He needs to get to the hospital wing!"

The man started but didn't say anything and he was gone again down the corridor, vanishing around the corner, headed for the hospital wing.

It was a few minutes until the footsteps died away. Lily knew she should leave; she didn't want to get in trouble for hanging around where something bad had obviously occurred, but she wanted to know what had happened. She wondered if the professor would return once the blond boy was being seen to by Madam Pomfrey. She assumed he would- there must still be someone in the bathroom- someone who had caused all that blood.

But Lily didn't want him to see her. The way he had looked at her… there was something very strange about the way he had looked at her.

The professor soon reappeared and entered the bathroom once more. Lily caught a glimpse of water and blood on the floor before the door swung closed again. Curious, Lily strained her ears to catch the conversation going on inside.

"…didn't mean it to happen. I didn't know what that spell did."

That voice was intensely familiar to Lily and she risked leaning out from behind her hiding place, trying to listen better to whomever was inside.

"Apparently I underestimated you, Potter. Who would have thought you knew such Dark Magic? Who taught you that spell?"

No.

She hadn't heard correctly. She couldn't have heard correctly. _Potter?_ _Dark Magic?_

Lily darted back behind the suit of armor as if it could shield her from what she'd just heard. She didn't hear any more of the conversation and was beginning to wish she hadn't stayed at all; she felt as though something heavy had settled in her stomach. Lily rested her weight against the wall of the corridor trying to piece together what had happened, trying to find some rational explanation. She had only heard a few bits of conversation. Surely, she was just assuming the worst?

Surely, _surely_ a student would be expelled for something like this? But her dad had never been expelled from Hogwarts. So there had to be more to it, didn't there? She was obviously missing something. _But is it worth it to hear more?_

What Lily really wanted was to leave, to get away from here. But as she stepped out from behind the suit of armor, the bathroom door banged open and suddenly there was a boy before her with untidy black hair and glasses in front of green eyes. He was dripping wet and covered in blood.

As Lily recognized her sixteen-year-old father she felt herself slipping down the wall in what seemed like slow motion until she was sitting on the floor, staring up at Harry.

Harry had been about to break into a run but at the sight of her he paused, open his mouth to say something, glanced back at the bathroom door and shook his head. He sprinted off down the corridor, looking back over his shoulder at her as he turned the corner.

She felt as though she were only sitting there on the cold floor for a matter of seconds when Harry came jogging back into the corridor, slowing before he entered the bathroom again. He was carrying his school bag with all his textbooks inside though Lily couldn't imagine why. He came to a stop when he saw Lily staring at him, and he tried to hold back a grimace at her startled expression.

"What are you doing," he asked and Lily's heart skipped as the familiar voice flowed into her ears. She thought it might be the sweetest sound she'd ever heard. But the look on his face made Lily feel rude for staring so openly. There was something about Harry's expression that was making her feel guilty.

"I'm… sitting. On the floor." And she was. It was true.

Harry raised an eyebrow at her and she looked away, her cheeks heating up.

_He knows I've been listening_.

There was an awkward silence as the two of them stared at each other, Lily still in somewhat of a state of shock and Harry flushed from running and full of adrenaline. Instead of looking at Harry's face, Lily stared down at her shoes and tried not to notice the blood stains on her father's sneakers. She watched as he walked past her and back into the bathroom where the professor was waiting. Knowing she didn't wan to hear any more, Lily finally stood and ran down the corridor as fast as she could.

Not paying attention to where she was going, Lily ran until she found herself outside the Great Hall where dinner was taking place. She stood outside the doors looking in, hesitating. The different conversations, jokes, arguments, all seemed to become one general noise and Lily couldn't focus to distinguish anything in particular. If she looked closely, Lily could see Neville sitting with a few boys who must have been in the same year he was about halfway down the hall. And Luna at the Ravenclaw table taking a large portion of pudding. Lily stood there for a moment. Part of her wanted to go in and sit and eat and forget about what she'd just heard. But before she could decide, a cry from the Slytherin table drew her attention. She wasn't the only one who looked as a girl with blond hair jumped to her feat.

"What do you mean, _hurt_? Draco's been _hurt_?"

And with that the girl hurried from her seat, her thin, blond hair bouncing out behind her, a look of frightened determination on her pug-like face. When the girl reached the doorway where Lily was standing the two girls made eye contact for just a moment. Lily felt as though she should recognize who this was, but she her memory failed her. Their shoulder's bumped as the girl pushed her way past Lily.

Lily rubbed her shoulder grudgingly and felt an ache growing in the back of her head as she walked into the Great Hall for dinner.

* * *

**All right, here's chapter three folks!**

**--> Many thanks again to my amazingly good beta, ellaminnowpea. **

**Please let me know what you think in a review!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four- At a Loss**

_Swish and flick. Swish and flick._

The heavy book in front of her rose and fell with the waving of her wand as Lily idly gazed around the Hogwarts library. Once again, Lily was researching information on various methods and incidents of time travel and, once again, she was coming up with absolutely _nothing_. Well, unless you counted that section in _Catastrophic Miscalculations_ about the wizard who'd ended up becoming, through a long series of mishaps, his own grandfather. It said very little about how he actually managed his jumps through time and the whole thing was really worthless to Lily. She shuddered slightly and pushed _Catastrophic Miscalculations_ to the far end of the table.

She quickly became disinterested and distracted from her fruitless research. It had been just over a week since she'd woken up in the hospital wing and everyday since then Lily had come to the library. But even with a solid week's worth of reading and rereading she had absolutely nothing to show for it. For some reason, though, she'd kept coming back. Lily smiled around at the familiar shelves. The library had become a sanctuary for her, an escape from the sidelong glances and murmured rumors that flew around her in the corridors.

But trying to do any more work today would be impossible. Lily was even less focused than usual today. So, instead of returning to the seemingly unhelpful shelves of books upon more books, Lily took to observing the students who'd decided their Sunday afternoon was better spent studying for their upcoming exams rather than out in the gorgeous sunshine. There were a few Ravenclaws a few tables over who were huddled together over a large arithmancy volume speaking in hushed tones about something entirely foreign to Lily. There were a few Hufflepuffs here and there, a random Slytherin browsing the shelves. A group of what looked like fifth year Gryffindor boys at a table in front of her were chatting quietly about quidditch, ignoring the books and parchment that surrounded them.

_Swish and flick. Swish and flick_.

The book continued to hover as Lily casually eavesdropped on those within hearing distance. From what Lily could catch of the muffled conversation the Gryffindor boys were having, they were excitedly recounting, play by play, the final quidditch match from the day before. Gryffindor had come out on top despite the fact that their star captain, and seeker to boot, had landed himself in detention and, once _again_, hadn't been able to play in the final.

But Lily didn't want to think about that.

Harry's face flashed into her mind, his wet clothes, his red stained sneakers.

Harry hadn't been playing because he had been in _detention_. Detention for cursing Draco Malfoy so badly… _All that blood_. Lily frantically shook her head to get rid of the image of all that blood, of that professor supporting the Malfoy boy down the hall.

That professor, Lily had learned this week, was Severus Snape and he taught Defense Against the Dark Arts. Lily had also learned that he was a complete enigma. What she did know was that he had died sometime near the end of the war, that he had killed Albus Dumbledore, and that Al got his middle name from him.

_I'll have to ask Dad about that one,_ Lily thought, _Albus Severus…._

It then abruptly occurred to Lily that she wouldn't be able to ask her dad anything any time soon. And she didn't much fancy the idea of walking up to a sixteen-year-old Harry Potter and questioning him about it.

Lily had taken to sitting in the back of all her classes, more to avoid Ginny than anything else, but in Defense it also helped her to avoid the odd looks that Snape often gave her as well. It was as if he was looking for something in her face, something familiar. She was the first to leave when they were dismissed, practically running from the room. There was just something about the man that made her uneasy.

Lily sighed and rested her elbows on the library table, shifting her weight in her chair.

_Swish and flick_.

Another afternoon wasted.

Lily was just deciding that perhaps she'd find a nice place to sit along the lake when a very familiar figure emerged from among the many shelves in front of her. At the sight of Hermione Granger, Lily just had time to register the disgruntled expression on the girl's face before her focus snapped and the book she'd been levitating fell with a loud crash onto the table.

Most of the other occupants looked in her direction, glaring or rolling their eyes. Lily hastily began gathering her things, dreading that Madam Pince was going to spring out at her. But before she'd pulled everything together there was a loud shriek.

"That's it!"

Wincing at what she was sure would be a very angry librarian, Lily looked up and froze as she saw Hermione grab one of the heavy volumes in front of her, a delighted look on her face. She smiled up at Lily excitedly.

"This is the book I've been looking for," she said to Lily who could only stare with her mouth hanging open slightly. Her eyes darted around the library as if looking for the closest exit. "Are you finished with it? Would you mind if I borrowed it?"

_Question_, part of Lily's brain registered. _Answer!_

"Uh…." Lily shook her head, trying to clear it, and focused on the book Hermione was holding up. It was a collection of old issues of the _Daily Prophet_, which had proved to be of little use to her so far.

Lily managed to cough out, "Sure, take it. I'm done with it."

But rather than the enthusiastic reply Lily was expecting, Hermione only offered a distracted, "Thanks."

There was an awkward moment during which both girls merely stood there, the tilted and stained table between them. Hermione didn't leave right away even though she had what she was looking for. Lily hoped she wasn't going to try to continue making conversation. She avoided Hermione's eyes, and pulled a random book toward her and stuffed it into her bag.

Hermione was frowning at Lily's robes as if deep in thought and Lily glanced down at them, scanning for anything embarrassing. They looked fine to her. Lily glanced back up at Hermione and cleared her throat pointedly.

"Is there something wrong with my robes?" Lily asked.

"What?" Hermione shook her head and smiled sheepishly at Lily. "Oh, no. I was just—I thought I knew everyone in Gryffindor."

"Well, I'm sort of new here…" Lily began in a leading tone.

Hermione's face lit up with instant recognition. "You're Professor McGonagall's niece!"

That still sounded entirely strange to Lily. Minerva McGonagall was her _headmistress_, not her aunt. She hadn't anticipated how awkward the situation would feel. But she nodded at Hermione's statement anyway.

Hermione was nodding now in recognition. "That must be why you look so _familiar_. It's almost as if I've seen you before. But…" Hermione studied Lily's face more carefully. "You don't look very much like your aunt."

Lily instantly remembered her meeting with Luna from a week before. _You look more like my friend, Ginny._ Lily felt a sudden pang of fear. Surely, if anyone would be able to figure out what was going on it would be Hermione. Hermione Weasley (Granger for now, Lily supposed) was the smartest witch Lily had ever met.

"Well," Lily said in response to Hermione's comment, her worry creeping into her tone, "what can I say?"

Lily began glancing down at her things on the table wishing that Hermione would leave. Her books and parchment and ink were still only half gathered and there seemed to be entirely too much for her to fit into her bag but Lily began gathering it anyway. Hermione picked up one of books out of Lily's reach and offered, "Are you headed back to the common room? I could help you carry all this if you want."

The thought of more strained conversation with her future aunt made Lily's stomach churn uncomfortably but she couldn't think of any reason why she _wouldn't_ be bringing all this back to the common room. She tried to smile politely, not wanting to offend Hermione by turning down her offer. After all, Hermione was only trying to be nice.

"Sure," she said and picked up her bag, swinging it over her shoulder. The two girls then made their way out of the library, Hermione curiously glancing in Lily's direction. Lily stared ahead, counting the steps back to Gryffindor Tower.

* * *

"I don't understand."

James Sirius Potter rolled his eyes and turned to face his brother. "Lily's gone, Al. What else is there to understand?"

His harsh tone as he pronounced his sister's absence made the other occupants of the room flinch, including Albus.

"I know that!" he snarled back at James. "What I don't understand is why we're all just _sitting here_, not doing anything about it!"

James's face reddened and he glared at his brother. "Well, do you have any ideas, genius? Any brilliant theories on how to bring Lily back? Because we'd love to hear them, we really would."

"James, that's enough." Ginny's tone was threatening and her face was strained and stained with tears. Neither brother paid her any mind though. James had his head raised, a challenge written all over his face. Al remained silent for a moment and James smirked.

"Right. Well, when you come up with something, be sure to let us know, won't you?"

Al was suddenly on his feet and James quickly followed suit. They were nearly the same height now and that fact made Al feel stronger. His big brother wasn't so big anymore. But before either of them could do anything, Harry was standing between them, an arm stretched out to each and a look on his face that made Al and James step away.

"That's _enough_," he said, his voice quiet and frightening, and it was enough. Al had never seen his father like this.

_Well, that's not entirely true_.

Al that he'd been seeing a lot of his father's temper for the past week. All of the Potters were tense and snappy and the atmosphere in the house had lost all the comfort Al had loved growing up. Sometimes Al felt that the walls were closing in on him, that he would suffocate in the house. He would wander from room to room, unable to sit still for long. He had seen his mother crying too often. He had seen his father lose his temper too much.

Al had left Hogwarts the day after Lily had gone missing. That had been a week ago. James had also been back at home since hearing the news. He was taking a leave from work (in the Experimental Charms department at the ministry) for however long it took to get Lily back. Al gazed over at his brother who had his head bowed and his shoulders slumped. It seemed to Al that James had little hope of getting Lily back and it made Al want to punch him.

_That's only your anger talking. James would never give up hope on Lily._

The Potter family was now sitting room, the same place they had been for the past few hours. They had finally received work from Teddy earlier that morning after a week of waiting and were expecting his arrival any time now. The outburst between Al and James had been the first thing to break the silence in quite a while.

Al glanced up at the clock over the mantel for what felt like the hundredth time and found that only fifteen minutes had passed since he last looked. The minutes were slowly ticking by and they were all sitting here watching it happen. He sighed as more frustration welled up inside of him. James noticed this and rolled his eyes.

Harry looked from James to Al and back again, a dangerous expression on his face and both brothers sat in silence, glaring at each other but unwilling to do anything in front of their dad.

The room lapsed back into silence and Al started fidgeting in his seat. Why wasn't anyone saying anything? Why weren't they talking through how to get Lily back? He felt so useless.

As Harry sat on the couch beside Ginny, she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. Both parents looked utterly miserable. Al and James glanced at each other, and Al knew that both suddenly felt ashamed of their outbursts.

Any time now, Teddy would be arriving and Al held out hope that when he did, perhaps something would begin to get done. Al knew that Teddy saw Lily as a little sister as much as he or James did and would go to the ends of the earth for her. They all would. But for the moment, they were all just sitting in the living room, waiting.

Al gripped the arms of the large chair, scrunching up the fabric beneath his fingers. He chanced a glance at James and saw that his brother was staring back at him. Al knew that they were both thinking the same thing.

_I wish Lily were here_.

* * *

Lily was lying on the bed in her dormitory, staring blankly out the window, which she'd opened to let in the spring breeze. Lily had managed to leave Hermione in the common room when they'd reached Gryffindor Tower. She'd made a beeline for the dormitory when they entered and hadn't emerged since.

It was the most relaxed Lily had felt since she'd arrived in 1997 and she wanted to hold on to that feeling for as long as she could. Lily knew that once she left the dormitory it would be to return to the awkward glances, the clipped conversations, the perpetual lump in her stomach. But for now, she was relaxed.

Lily stayed like that, stretched out on her bed, for hours, until the light through the window started to darken and take on a rosier tint, lighting up her face and her red hair. And then Lily heard voices, two of them, growing louder as the two girls they belonged to ascended the stairs. Lily squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that the voices would pass by but a moment later she recognized her mother's voice getting closer and her heart began to pound faster in her chest.

"…was _amazing_. We went straight outside and took a long walk around the lake."

Rolling quickly onto her stomach, Lily pushed herself into a sitting position and grabbed a book from the nightstand, hoping she would appear busy and inaccessible. The door swung open.

Hermione and Ginny entered, both girls smiling but Ginny looking exceptionally elated.

"Oh, hello!" Ginny smiled widely as she caught sight of Lily and Lily couldn't look away. Her book lay forgotten in her lap. For a moment, Ginny seemed surprised to see Lily there and Lily couldn't blame her. She'd gone out of her way to avoid meeting up with Ginny, something that had taken a bit of effort in such a closed space. Ginny grinned a little sheepishly. "I don't think we've actually met yet, have we?"

Despite Lily's discomfort, Ginny's good mood to be contagious and she found herself responding automatically.

"I guess not," Lily answered, hoping that her voice sounded normal. "I'm Patrice."

"Ginny."

_How strange to be introduced to my own mother._

Ginny looked back at Hermione, who was looking curiously at Lily, over her shoulder and said, "And this is-"

"Hermione," Lily answered and smiled. "Yes, we met earlier today in the library."

Ginny giggled. "Of course, the library. Hermione rarely ventures elsewhere." Her teasing tone made Hermione finally turn away from Lily, who was beginning to feel uncomfortable under her stare.

"I spent all afternoon with Ron!" Hermione protested and Ginny laughed, raising her eyebrows.

"So we know you weren't in the library then. Ron avoids it like the plague."

Lily smiled at the interaction, thinking that it was very similar to the Ginny and Hermione that Lily knew from her own time. It was somehow nice to know that they'd been good friends for so long. It was nice to know that years from now, they would still be close. Lily only hoped that she'd be back to see it soon.

Lily began to relax a bit as the attention was no longer focused on her, but her heart continued to pound in her chest. Then silence descended awkwardly on the three girls and Lily glanced down at her lap and began twisting her hair in her hands.

Hermione let out a quiet "Huh."

Lily glanced up and saw Hermione glancing between her and Ginny. When Lily looked over at Ginny she saw that the other girl was absently twisting her hair in her hands as she gazed out the window. Lily immediately dropped her hands into her lap and looked away from Hermione.

"So," Lily ventured in an attempt to break the distract Hermione. "Who's hungry?"

* * *

When Teddy Lupin entered the room he had a crooked grin on his face and a bag slung over his shoulder. His hair was a bright turquoise. He looked happy and healthy and… vibrant. But when he saw the faces of everyone else in the room, his grin slid from his face. Al stared at him, waiting silently before he realized.

"You don't know." Al's voice was flat. He glanced over at his dad and then back at Teddy.

"Know what?"

Teddy didn't know what had happened to Lily yet. No one had wanted to tell Teddy that Lily was missing through an owl or even a Patronus but Al had assumed they'd told him _something_. Apparently Harry only had told him that he needed to come see them as soon as possible, that it was urgent. Teddy would have been there within minutes if it were possible; his trust in his godfather was immeasurable and if Harry said it was urgent, it was urgent. "As soon as possible" had ended up being a week.

Teddy's job took him all over the globe. He worked in International Magical Communications, travelling to conferences and embassies and the occasional dinner at the homes of important government officials from around the world.

Al knew that Teddy loved his job, but it did make his life a bit unpredictable at times. It occurred to Al that Teddy would never be able to predict what they were about to tell him and Al felt a twinge of sympathy.

"What's going on?" Teddy asked, looking at Harry with concern. His eyes scanned the room, taking in everyone's miserable expressions, before he focused back on Harry.

Harry sighed and stood up, walking over to his godson. Harry was a bit taller and he stood with his head bowed slightly.

"Harry, what's wrong?"

Al held his breath as he waited for those awful words to come from his father's mouth. Every time they did, Lily's absence became alarmingly more real to Al and he hated that feeling.

"It's Lily."

Teddy's face immediately became expressionless, guarding his emotions.

"What about Lily?" Teddy glanced over at Al who shifted in his seat but didn't look away. "Is she still at Hogwarts?"

There was a pause.

"Is Lily all right?" Teddy persisted, his voice growing louder.

"Lily's gone." Al hadn't meant to speak, but the words left his mouth before he could stop them and he was on his feet. "She's gone. She's lost somewhere in time and we don't know when. She's gone and we don't know how to bring her back. She's gone and no one's _doing anything about it._"

Al's breathing was rapid and his eyes darted around the room wildly. Ginny had gotten up and walked quickly over to her son, wrapping her arms around Al's shoulders. Harry stood, looking at Al, no expression on his face. James had remained silent this time. His face was unnaturally pale and fingers were white as he gripped the arms of his chair so hard that Al was sure the fabric would rip.

Teddy was staring, not at Al, but at Harry.

"What's he talking about?" Teddy turned to glare at Al as his bag dropped to the floor. It landed with a _thud_.

"Lily's _gone_!" Al shouted and Ginny tightened her arms around him even more.

Harry turned to his son and grabbed his arm, not hard, just enough to catch Al's attention.

"We are going to bring her back, Al. We are going to figure this out and we're going to bring her back."

Al had expected his dad to yell at him but instead his voice was quiet and firm. There was a hint of desperation in his father's voice, but he spoke with such conviction that Al felt himself starting to believe that something was going to get done. Al felt his breath evening out again. He looked over at Teddy who was stone-faced.

His previously turquoise hair had changed back to it natural brown. Teddy glanced around at the Potters and took a deep breath.

"What are we going to do?"

* * *

**Let me know what you think in a review, please!**

**Once again, many thanks to my beta, ellaminnowpea. (By the way, she has some fantastic L/J work over at her profile that you all should check out!)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five- Meet the Press**

"Is it true, Ginny?"

"Is _what_ true, Romilda?"

"Is it true that… does Harry really have a hippogriff tattooed across his chest?"

Lily choked into her cereal bowl in a fit of sudden laughter. A _hippogriff_? Who was this girl?

Her very unladylike display went unnoticed by either of the other girls, for which Lily was thankful. She was only a few seats down from the two of them at the Gryffindor Table, casually eavesdropping on their conversation. Romilda, who Lily thought she'd seen hanging around the common room (staring at Harry), had been nagging Ginny with questions about Harry for the last quarter of an hour and things had just taken a ridiculous turn.

Ginny was doing a better job of hiding her mirth than Lily but as Lily glanced over at her, she noticed the way Ginny's nose was twitching- the way it always did when she was trying not to laugh. The Romilda girl was becoming impatient while Ginny just stared, eyebrows raised, her head tilted very slightly to the side.

"_Well_?"

Ginny remained silent for just another moment before replying. "No, Romilda. Harry does not have a _hippogriff_ tattooed across his chest." Ginny scoffed. "How stupid."

Lily was amazed at how quickly Romilda's face went from interest to vague disappointment to a challenge. Ginny had turned her attention back to her breakfast, finishing off her toast, but she looked up again at Romilda's next, scathing words. "Oh yeah? And you know that, do you?"

Ginny's eyebrow quirked upward. She appeared entirely unimpressed by the black haired girl across from her.

"I _know_ Harry doesn't have a hippogriff tattooed across his chest. I _know_ because it's actually a Hungarian Horntail." Ginny paused. "Much more macho, don't you think?"

Without waiting for a reply, Ginny stood from her seat, flipping her hair over her shoulder. Lily meanwhile, was in quiet hysterics again and trying to cover it up in a cough. Romilda's face fell in disappointment and jealously and she stalked away towards her fourth year friends while Ginny left the hall, clearly chuckling to herself.

This wasn't the first conversation that Lily had not so shamefully listened in on lately. She was actually spending quite a bit of her time observing her parents, watching them from across the common room or finding seats right behind Ginny in classes. Lily had gone from avoiding Harry and Ginny like the plague to becoming gradually more fascinated with them. It was like a little bit of home, hearing their voices, seeing the familiar mannerisms. And Lily was looking for any bit of home that she could find.

But every time they happened to glance in her direction and make eye contact Lily woke from her pleasant dream of home and found herself back in the nightmare of the past few weeks. There was no recognition in their faces. Harry didn't run up to hug her and Ginny didn't kiss her on the cheek. Every time she had any actual interaction with either of them, Lily felt out of place. The smallest things would cause her to nearly lose control. But still, she continued to watch them more and more.

Most of her time was otherwise spent with schoolwork or returning to the library to search for new clues about time travel, but her enthusiasm in this endeavor had started to dwindle. It seemed there was no easy fix to her time travelling mishap. But the more time that passed without anything happening to fix her situation, the more Lily seemed to think that it never would get fixed at all. Time seemed to be creeping by these days, reluctant to return her to when she belonged. Although it was only a few weeks ago that Lily had landed in 1997, she felt as though it had been an eternity.

Lily glanced down at her watch and then remembered that it was still acting strangely despite her efforts to fix it. No matter what Lily tried, her watch continued to tick away in the wrong direction, a fact which made it increasingly difficult for her to get to class on time. But despite the fact that her watch wasn't working anymore, she was still following her usual routine, placing it carefully on the nightstand before bed each night and strapping it carefully to her wrist each morning. Lily had a feeling that she only did this out of a thirst for some normality, but whatever the reason, a watch that didn't tell time wasn't doing her any good at the moment.

Instead, Lily relied on the number of students lingering in the Great Hall when it came to leaving for class in the morning. Most were leaving as she looked around and so Lily hoisted her bag over her shoulder and walked briskly towards the entrance hall. She then made her way up the marble staircase towards the Charms corridor, humming as she walked, thinking of hippogriffs and Hungarian Horntails and smiling.

Gryffindors had Charms with the Ravenclaws, which Lily generally enjoyed. If nothing else, the larger than usual class made it easier for her to pass the time unnoticed. Lily was used to having more students in her classes anyway. She supposed that after the war, people had finally settled down and had had bunches of little wizarding children because there were certainly more students in Lily's year back home than there were here.

Lily usually sat at one of the tables in the back with various Ravenclaws that she didn't really talk to. And so she was understandably surprised when someone took the seat next to her and called her by name.

"Hello, Patrice."

Lily paused in pulling her wand out of her bag and looked around to see Luna sitting down, a smile on her face. Lily recognized her easily as the strange girl she'd met earlier in the entrance hall. Her wide blue eyes were looking earnestly in Lily's direction.

"Hello," Lily said and smiled easily in return. She had noticed that it was becoming easier and easier to have normal conversations.

"I normally sit over there by the window," Luna pointed to the other side of the room, "but there's a group of nargles hanging around. I didn't think you would mind if we shared."

Lily passed over the mentions of nargles and said, "Oh, I don't mind."

Luna smiled and hopped into her seat, stowing her wand behind her ear and turning to watch Professor Flitwick, who was starting to take roll while a boy from Ravenclaw handed out thick, heavy textbooks. Lily glanced at the one in front of her, a dubious expression on her face. Their assignment, it seemed, was to charm wings onto it and coax it into flying.

When Professor Flitwick was near the end of the roll and called, "Ginny Weasley," Lily glanced casually in Ginny's direction. She looked distracted and was giggling with her group of friends. One of them nudged her and she looked up saying, "here," in a quite a singsong voice before turning back to her friends.

As Lily and Luna set to work with the spell, Lily was pleasantly surprised when, on only her third try, her book sprouted white, feathery wings and lifted itself off the table. She smiled as she watched the book do a few loops in the air. Luna was watching her own book, which now had scaly, purple wings, hover up near the ceiling.

However, a moment later, Lily's concentration was broken by a commotion at the front of the room and her book's wings vanished. It fell back to the table with a loud _thunk_. Professor Flitwick had just leapt from behind his podium, just barely dodging a lopsided, one-winged book that zoomed past him and collided with the window. There was silence in the class for a few seconds before Professor Flitwick emerged again, tousled and flustered. The rogue book lay twitching on the floor. A few people laughed.

Lily turned her attention to her book and saw that it had slipped off the table. She bent down to pick it up, reaching her arm out.

"Miss Weasley!"

Lily's head jerked up at Professor Flitwick's shout and bumped into the table. Straightening up and rubbing her head, Lily looked over in Ginny's direction to see her with her wand in the air, a slightly guilty expression on her face but her lips tugging into a smile. Her friends were giggling again but as Flitwick made his way over to their table Ginny winced.

"Sorry, Professor."

"Perhaps you would be able to concentrate better, Miss Weasley, at a different table."

Ginny didn't argue but gathered her things quickly and got up to follow as Professor Flitwick led her away from her friends. Ginny made a face over her shoulder and her friends started giggling again. Lily realized too late that Flitwick was leading Ginny over to where she and Luna were sitting. She hastily turned her attention to her book again just as Ginny sat down. Luna smiled serenely, gazing between the two red heads.

Once Professor Flitwick had returned to the front of the class Ginny smiled and said, "Hey, Luna. Patrice." There was no sign of shame or remorse in Ginny's voice. She didn't seem to mind that she'd momentarily disrupted the class, which was once again filling with the sound of practiced incantations and chatter.

"So," Lily began. The air around her seemed to be solidifying. Talking would help to keep it moving. "Uh…." _Too bad I'm a dud and can't think of anything to say._

Ginny smiled conspiratorially at her and Lily felt her heart flutter a little in recognition. "I agree. Not much to say, is there? Class has been pretty dull today."

"I actually think it's rather fun. I'm quite fond of my book." And indeed it seemed that Luna's flying book was quite fond of her as well. It was hovering contentedly by Luna's right ear while she petted it absentmindedly.

Lily caught Ginny's and the two started giggling.

It seemed that Ginny was in a perpetual good mood these days and Lily was finding it contagious.

"I don't seem to have much luck with this charm anyway," Ginny said with a shrug.

"Don't worry," Luna replied. "I'm sure Harry would be happy to help you practice it later."

At this Lily actually saw her mother blush. It wasn't often that that happened. And it suddenly occurred to Lily why Ginny was in such a good mood lately. She and Harry had gotten together just after the quidditch final. It was strange to think of her parents ever _not_ being together. Even though she was forever hearing stories about their Hogwarts days, in Lily's mind, Harry and Ginny Potter were inseparable, even through time. Apparently, she was not. She had drifted away from them, from her brothers, from her cousins, her friends, so easily, almost as if nothing were tying her there. Lily felt a lump form in her throat and there was a slight stinging behind her eyes.

Lily's brief moment of contentment had been squashed as soon as it had come and she looked down at the table in front of her, tracing her fingers around the aged stains of ink and spellwork gone awry. Luna and Ginny continued to talk and laugh but Lily made no real effort to contribute. She was suddenly missing her family terribly and wanted nothing more than class to be over. When the Flitwick released them, she practically ran for the door, not caring who she bumped into or who saw the tears in her eyes.

* * *

Albus Potter was missing his sister terribly. 

But right at the moment, he couldn't seem to concentrate too much on that. He was distracted by all the noise, the shouting, the scraping of chairs, the tears. It was always an affair at the Burrow. And there never seemed enough room to contain all the energy of so many people.

Al was the only one still in his seat and he was going largely unnoticed by the rest of the occupants of the kitchen at the Weasley household. And there were currently quite a lot of them. All of Al's aunts and uncles were there as well as Grandma and Grandpa. His parents were there. James and Teddy were there. It seemed everyone was there. Everyone but Lily.

In all the confusion, Al took the opportunity to slip outside into the garden.

Just over half an hour ago, Al and his family had arrived at the Burrow to find everyone else waiting for them. Ginny had done a lot of calling by floo powder earlier that day asking everyone to meet. And so, at 5:30, they had set out for the Burrow to break the news of Lily's disappearance in the hopes that the more heads they had trying to solve this, the faster they'd solve it. The faster Lily would come home and he could give her a hug and know she was really, really there. _The more likely she'll be back at all_, Al couldn't help thinking. He hated himself for thinking it, for thinking that Lily might really be gone where they couldn't bring her back, but it was there, in the back of his mind.

He propped himself up onto the fence and felt his shoulders slump. He would give anything to have Lily back right now.

"_ENOUGH!"_

The shout from the kitchen made Al jump. He turned to look through the window and saw Harry standing, his hands up in the air, everyone else staring at him. He started to talk, but even though Al couldn't hear what he was saying, he didn't turn away. He tried to envision what his dad was saying, but because nothing like this had ever come up before, Al didn't really know what to expect.

Grandma was crying. She was leaning into Grandpa's shoulder, her body shaking with tears. Aunt Hermione was crying too, but she was still upright, listening intently, her mind clearly working fast as she listened to Harry explain. Uncle Ron had his arm around her and his face was blank, his shoulders square, his jaw clenched.

They talked for a long time, and Al was glad that he wasn't there to hear it. He turned away after a few minutes and stared out at the wood line off in the distance and the old stump sticking up in the field. He couldn't help memories of him and Lily and James playing out here in the summers. The three of them would play on the stump seeing who could stay on the longest while trying to push the others off. Lily had broken her arm once. He and James had been terrified of telling their mother. Al was so consumed in memories that he didn't hear the kitchen door open and he didn't hear footsteps coming up behind him.

He jumped slightly when he felt a hand rest on his shoulder, but it was only Charlie.

With little effort for someone in his late forties, Charlie swung himself up onto the fence beside Al and it distantly occurred to him that it must be held up with magic for it to hold both of their weights.

"I bet you've heard a lot of stories from your parents' days at Hogwarts, haven't you?"

Al nodded, not feeling much up to conversation. At least Charlie wasn't spouting out the usual, 'How're you holding up?' or 'don't you worry, kiddo.'

"Did Harry or Ginny ever tell you about the Chamber of Secrets?"

For a moment, Al didn't take in the question. This was even more unexpected than Charlie's first question and Al actually turned his head to look his uncle in the eye.

"Not really," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I mean, I know Dad killed a snake and stuff and Mum disappeared for a bit but that's about it."

Charlie nodded, not looking away from Al. "Well, there was a bit more to it than that."

Al resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I guessed."

A ghost of a smile appeared on Charlie's face before disappearing again. Al had always liked his Uncle Charlie. When Al was little, he and James had loved Charlie's stories about dragons and he would show them the burn marks on his arms. He was forever the cool one, the fun-loving bachelor. But right at the moment, it occurred to Al what Charlie must have looked like, sitting in the head's office at Hogwarts, hearing the news that his sister was gone. Much like he himself had experienced.

"Did they ever tell you that Ginny almost died that night?"

Al blinked. No, they had not told him that. He shook his head, no words coming.

Charlie sighed and leaned forward so that his elbows were resting on his legs. He took a moment before continuing. "I almost lost my sister that night, Al. They told us she was gone. They told us she was dead."

Al's mouth was hanging open as he listened, transfixed. Charlie was no longer looking at him, but staring straight ahead instead as though reliving that moment when he'd received the news.

"Mum and Dad let us know before rushing to Hogwarts. Bill and I were the only ones out of school then so it wasn't hard letting just the two of us know. I've never seen Bill lose it like that. I really haven't. It—" He paused, dragging himself back to the present. "But that's not the point. The point is, she wasn't really gone. Ginny was fine in the end, against all odds."

_But Lily really is gone_, Al thought. He didn't voice this aloud. Charlie turned to look at him again, and once again Al felt a little guilty at his thought. Charlie's voice was full of conviction when he next spoke.

"Your dad saved her. Even when we all thought Ginny was gone, he went into the _Chamber of Secrets_ and brought her back. He did the impossible and brought our sister back to us."

And it was at this point that Al realized where this was going. He turned again to look back through the Burrow's kitchen window. He saw his dad standing, his arm around his wife, as those still in the kitchen talked about how to bring Lily back. Harry was Al's hero in every way that a father was his son's hero. But at that moment, Al couldn't describe why, Harry looked every bit more the hero than he ever had before. And Al knew that somehow, they would get Lily back.

* * *

After Charms, Lily rushed out of the classroom. All she wanted was somewhere to hide. She wanted to get away, to catch her breath, and she hated herself for it. As she strode quickly through the halls, she scrubbed at her eyes to wipe away the tears, frustrated that her emotions had been so unpredictable lately. She thought she was adjusting, she thought she was getting along fine, most of the time anyway. Apparently she was wrong. It wasn't so easy to adjust to being suddenly twenty years in the past. 

The days weren't so unbearable anymore. She had actually been _cheerful_ this morning and she _was_ adjusting. Why had thinking about Harry and Ginny getting together done this to her? Maybe it was because it had hit home again that so many things she remembered, so many people she knew… they hadn't happened yet.

She needed some room to breathe.

As she thought this, a door appeared to her right and Lily jumped back against the opposite wall. She was momentarily startled so badly that she didn't move. She glanced down the hall to her left and then to her right. No one else was in the corridor. She stepped away from the wall, towards the mysterious door, and held her hand out, poised to push it open.

With sudden foresight, Lily pulled out her wand. Her breathing quickened. With one swift motion, Lily pushed the door wide open, lifted her wand, and then gasped.

Before her was a stunning room with a high, domed ceiling and bright lighting. It was a wide, open space and as Lily stepped cautiously inside, she felt cool, fresh air reach her lungs.

Somewhere to breathe. Just what she needed. The room had given her just what she needed.

With a laugh, Lily stepped further into the room. She closed her eyes and took a few long deep breaths. It was quiet in the room. The sort of quiet normally found in the very early morning, just before the sun rises. Lily was amazed at how much better she suddenly felt. And then she was struck with a sudden idea.

The room had given her somewhere to breathe, just like she'd wanted. What if it could give her other things that she wanted as well? As this exciting thought occurred to her, she closed her eyes and thought, _I need somewhere to sit down._

When she opened her eyes again, Lily let out a cry of delight. A few feet away stood a velvety red armchair with deep cushions, the sort of seat you'd find in the Gryffindor common room. She rushed over to it and put her hand on it. It was definitely real. The cloth beneath her fingers was the softest she'd ever felt. She let herself fall into the chair and she closed her eyes, thinking. What else did she need?

_A way to get home_, was the though that first occurred to her.

Lily opened her eyes again. A room that gave you anything you asked for? Could she really ask it for a way home?

Her heart started to beat faster and Lily got quickly to her feet, unable to sit still for a moment longer. Would this really work? If it did… she could be home in mere _minutes_. She could see her parents again, her brothers. She could hug them and talk to them and they would be there. It was almost too good to be true. She hesitated.

She wanted this to work. If it didn't…

Lily tried to take a deep, calming breath. She wrapped her arms around herself, closed her eyes and thought, _I need a way to get home, to get back to my own time. I need a way to get back to my own time where I belong_.

Lily waited for a moment before she opened her eyes. She had never wanted anything more.

She peeked between her eyelids and could see nothing but the red chair in front of her. Lily opened her eyes all the way and still saw nothing but the chair. She spun around, searching every corner, every crevice of the empty room, but it was just that. Empty. All of her hopes plummeted until she felt sick to her stomach.

Perhaps it had worked? Perhaps she was back in her own time and just in the same room?

Lily sprinted to the door and flung it open. The hallway looked the same, but that didn't mean anything. She ran out into the corridor, her feet pounding on the stone floor the only sound. She was turning the corner when she ran straight into someone going the other way. When Lily recognized who it was, her heart sank even further than she thought was possible. In front of her, rubbing his shoulder where they'd collided, was a sixteen-year-old Draco Malfoy. And behind him what appeared to be two first year girls, one of them carrying a brass telescope.

"Not even going to apologize for almost knocking me over? Typical." He sneered at her but Lily wasn't paying attention. She was still firmly in 1997. This confirmed it. She stared ahead, not seeing Malfoy or anything around her. It really hadn't worked. She was still here.

As Malfoy pushed past her, knocking her into the wall, Lily sank to the floor and rested her head on her knees. Even though she'd only just discovered the room and she hadn't been counting on it before, she felt cheated. It felt as though her last hope had just slipped through her fingers.

* * *

A few days after the meeting at the Burrow, James was back at work. As he strode purposefully through the atrium, he tried to focus his mind on his most recent project rather than dwell on Lily. But as he waited for the next lift, surrounded by Ministry workers and, strangely, photographers, his thoughts wandered elsewhere. 

A bright flash to his left caught his attention and he turned. A man James knew worked down in the Department of Mysteries had just emerged from one of the floo grates and the journalists and photographers flocked over to him.

"What's all the fuss?" the disgruntled voice of Edmund Perkins asked as he glared over at the spectacle. James shrugged. The woman in front of them turned around.

"It's about one of the Unspeakables," she whispered conspiratorially. "Apparently one of them went missing a few days ago."

"That's nothing unusual," said James, furrowing his brow. "Working in the Department of Mysteries, strange things are bound to happen." It was true. Unspeakables got up to all sorts of dangerous and secretive things. There could be any number of reasons for his absence.

"Well, it's the memory loss that got all the press interested. One of the journalists for the Daily Prophet tipped everyone off to it. It's been a zoo of the press around here for the past few days."

Beside him, Edmund seemed very interested in the news, but James didn't care for all the journalists digging for a story where they obviously weren't going to find one. The Unspeakables weren't exactly known for their willingness to give interviews. He was just worried that his department, Experimental Charms, would be getting some heat from the press because of their close relationship with the Department of Mysteries. It also occured to him that one of the department's most recent projects was dealing with memory loss. Things looked to be busy for the next few days at least.

The lift arrived and James pushed his way through to get inside.

"See you, Potter," Perkins called and James waved. His back was turned and he didn't see a woman with bleach blond hair enter after him, an eager look on her face.

After descending a few levels, James and the woman were the only ones left on the lift. Glancing over at her, James saw that she was carrying a roll of parchment and a quill was sticking out of her handbag. He scowled.

James especially didn't care for journalists when he got stuck in the lift with them.

The woman beside him was probably in her forties, though she'd never admit it. Her skirt was much too short for her figure and her perfume was making it hard for James to concentrate, as though his brain was filling up with smoke. He noticed her furtive glances in his direction even though she was trying to be subtle.

When the lift arrived at James's level, he was only too glad to get off. But the moment he stepped forward the woman said, "Oh, you work on this floor, do you? Well, how lucky for me." And she stepped off after him.

James gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore her as he made his way to his cubicle. When it became clear that she was going to follow him, James came to an abrupt halt and turned sharply.

"Do you mind?"

"Not at all," the woman replied with a toothy smile. "Pansy Parkinson." She held out a hand for him to shake. He declined. "I'd like to ask you a few questions."

* * *

**Okay, sorry for the wait, you guys. School comes first. I hope you liked the chapter, please let me know! How do you all feel about this being about halfway done?**

**Thanks to my fantastic beta: Ellaminnowpea!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six- Secrets, Secrets**

James had been having one _hell_ of a day so far.

In the hours since he'd arrived at the ministry that morning, he'd scarcely had two minutes to breathe. He'd been rushed in and out of various meetings, had papers shoved into his hands, received memos and more memos sent out by his superiors. The entire department seemed to be in chaos. And he still didn't have a great grasp on what was going on. It was exhausting. When he finally thought that he'd steal a few minutes to get to his cubicle and put his head down on his desk, a voice called him from behind stopping him where he stood. He ran a hand through his slightly scruffy auburn hair before turning around.

At the sight of Pansy Parkinson approaching, James shoved his hands into his pockets and wheeled back around, continuing more quickly on the path to his desk as though he hadn't seen anything at all. In front of him, waiting by his cubicle, he found Elaine Goodrich waiting there, looking anxious, shifting her weight between her feet. As soon as she saw him approaching, she burst into speech.

"James, Abercrombie's just sent out _another_ memo! He says he wants our reports on memory-recovery by the end of the day! That's too soon. We haven't done enough research, we haven't done enough testing. Do you have that report on the _obliviate_ charm? I can't find mine! I think I lost it!" She said all this in a rush, her curly black hair bobbing up and down as she spoke. She didn't seem to be aware of Parkinson approaching behind James.

James glanced over his shoulder to see Parkinson raise a sculpted blonde eyebrow and pause, listening in. James sighed, placing an arm on Elaine's shoulder and led her into the cubicle to avoid Pansy's stare and eager ears. Elaine peered around James's elbow and gasped when she saw the reporter standing there, smirking.

When they were out of Pansy's sight, Elaine wouldn't wait any longer for a reply. "James, how can Abercrombie expect us to finish our reports when we're interviewing Terry Boot this afternoon? It's ridiculous!" James could tell that she wanted him to sympathize. He rubbed his eyes tiredly before looking down again at her worried face.

This wasn't the first time James had seen Elaine so worked up. A month or so back when she found out all her paperwork had been vanished by Magical Maintenance, her desk had burst into flames from her emotional magic. It had taken James and two others to calm her down again.

"Look, Elaine, getting a report into Abercrombie is not as important right now as interrogating Boot." His voice was calm and soothing and Elaine visibly relaxed. "If anything," he continued, "our reports will be better with any info we get from the interview and it won't matter if they're late. Mr. Abercrombie is just going to have to wait. Now, sit and take a deep breath."

Elaine collapsed into James's chair and took a deep breath as he instructed. James meanwhile stared at his desk. It was the first time he'd really gotten a look at it all day and when he saw it he felt a headache coming on. There were mounds of parchment covering the surface, ink bottles scattered around, quills, inter-departmental memos. There were old newspapers, old coffee cups, stains from old coffee cups, sweet wrappers. It was a disaster area. James groaned deeply, part of him wishing he hadn't come up here at all, it was just _more_ work he had to do, and it was unlikely that he'd find that report Elaine wanted any time soon.

The rest of his cubicle was fairly organized. There was a small filing cabinet in the corner, pictures of family and friends were posted on the walls, and a small potted plant that Neville had sent over sat on a little wooden stand next to the desk. It looked like it desperately needed to be watered.

In the lull of Elaine's outburst a slow, steady knock sounded on the wall of James's cubicle. Elaine looked up curiously, trying to peer around to see who it was, but a moment later, Pansy Parkinson stepped into the room and Elaine sank back into her chair, looking at James with wide eyes.

Pansy sauntered slowing into the room, her hips swaying. She was short, James noticed. He was at least a foot taller than she was, but she didn't seem intimidated by his height. Instead, she walked right up to him and smiled in a way that James assumed was supposed to be friendly but instead make her look as if she were in pain. She was standing far too close for comfort.

"So, you're working on the Terry Boot case, are you? How interesting." She said it casually, looking away from James and taking in the state of his desk. She _tsked_ at the sight of it and shook her head.

James and Elaine glanced at each other quickly. Parkinson had been sniffing around the department all morning and they both knew she was up to no good, but this was the first real encounter either of them had had with the reporter.

"No comment," James said quietly. Pansy turned back to look at him and raised an eyebrow again. Acting almost as though she hadn't heard him, she turned to Elaine.

"You're working with memory recovery, is that right?"

Elaine glanced at James and let out a slightly high pitched, "no comment."

Turning away from Parkinson, Elaine said quickly, "James, I have to go, lots of work to do, you know." And with that, she rose from her seat and headed for the exit. She glanced back at James and grimaced behind Parkinson's back and James glared at her for leaving him to the wolves. James turned his glare to the reporter invading his office, all of his dislike of her practically radiating off of him, but the blond seemed entirely unaffected. With a wave of her wand, a corner of James's desk cleared and she seated herself on it, crossing her legs.

"If you don't mind, I have a lot of work-"

Pansy let out a high-pitched laugh, showing brilliant white teeth.

"I'm sure you can spare just a few minutes for a friendly chat," she said dismissively. James opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "Lovely family," she said, reaching out to one of the photos pinned to James's wall. It was one of he, Albus and Lily standing outside the house. It was the last year that they had all been going to Hogwarts together, their trunks were sitting in front of them, a prefects badge pinned to Al's shirt. The three of them were all grinning brightly at the camera and waving.

James could see Pansy's long nails scratch the surface of the photo and her grip had creased the middle of the picture, right over Lily's smiling face. The Lily in the picture scooted left and right, struggling to peer out from behind Pansy's thumb.

"Don't touch that," he said, more threateningly than he'd intended but she only looked over at him, amused. She still held the picture tightly in her hand.

"Your brother, he looks just like your father," she said, glancing up at him. James said nothing, but clenched his fists. Pansy smiled again. "And your sister here, her name is Lily, isn't it? Such a pretty girl."

"Get out," James growled, his hand twitching towards his wand which was tucked in his back pocket. He wasn't surprised that Parkinson knew about his family, everyone did. He was a little surprised though at how quickly he'd become angry with Parkinson at her mention of Lily. He'd been more protective of her than ever since she'd gone missing. Maybe he was trying to make up for not protecting her before.

Pansy made no move to leave. Although she released her hold on the picture she remained seated on the desk. She removed the shiny blue bag she'd been carrying on her shoulder and tossed it onto his desk, scattering even more papers.

"Now, James," she said, as though consoling an infant, "I'm just trying to make conversation." She raised her eyebrows at him and donned a look of innocence that James didn't buy for a second.

"You're just fishing for whatever story you're after," James said, his disdain for her clear in his tone. He leaned against the wall of his cubicle and crossed his arms.

Pansy stood from the desk and raised her arms to show they were empty of quill and parchment. Her bag still lay abandoned on the pile of parchment. "I assure you, _James_, this is entirely off the record." She giggled and reached out to place a placating hand on his shoulder but James shrugged her away before she got there and stepped away, keen to keep his distance.

"What do you _want_?" James asked.

"Peace of mind," Pansy replied in a simpering voice. "Do you _really_ think your department will be able to retrieve _dear_ Terry's memories about what happened to him?" She paused. "We were in the same year at Hogwarts, you know and such good friends."

She was watching him carefully. James didn't buy her concern for a second, but couldn't figure out why was she so interested if it wasn't for a story. He decided to go for a vague, noncommittal answer to her inquiry.

Making his face impassive, his shrugged his shoulders and said calmly, "At this point, we can't say what will happen with Mr. Boot's case." He raised his eyebrows and watched as Pansy's thin lips pursed in frustration. She recovered quickly though.

Taking a step closer to James, her pale face staring up at him, she asked, "Well, how long do you think it would take for you to be _sure_ you could retrieve his memories?"

James stared right back, unflinching. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stepped away from the wall and away from Parkinson. "I'm very sorry, Ms. Parkinson," he said in a mocking but firm tone, "but I really do have a lot of work to do."

And with that, he gestured in the direction of the exit. She took herself to be dismissed, picked up her bag and walked slowly out of the office throwing a wink over her shoulder that told James she wasn't done. She was determined to find out something, and it worried James that he had no idea what that was.

* * *

Lily had never made a habit out of skipping classes before, but since her latest disappointment with the Room of Requirement, she found she no longer had the stomach to sit through them with her fifteen-year-old mother and pretend that everything was fine. Everything was _far_ from being fine. She'd made an attempt to do this, this living in the past, acting as though nothing was wrong, but Lily was fed up with trying to make this work when things were so obviously messed up. After her unfortunate encounter with that room, something inside her had snapped. 

She wasn't giving up exactly, it was just that it had just become difficult lately to say that everything was _okay_. All the pretending felt like giving up and she couldn't do that anymore. She didn't want to adjust, to try to fit in, to attend classes, because as far as Lily was concerned, she wasn't going to be here forever. She was going to get _home_ so why make a life for herself here?

So what if she was missing Defense Against the Dark Arts anyway? She'd already skipped Transfiguration and Charms without great consequence, a few points taken, no big deal. And she didn't find the class particularly engaging with Severus Snape teaching it anyway, not with the strange glances he was always giving her. She kept having the strangest feeling that he recognized her, which was, of course, impossible. He'd known her grandmother, whom her father always compared her fondly to, but that a long time ago.

Defense was also frustrating because of all the talk about a war that wasn't even happening in her time. It was almost more like History of Magic with a scarier teacher.

Currently, Lily was headed for the Astronomy Tower knowing from experience that it was usually empty during the day. The fact that it was generally forbidden to students not in class there made it more appealing and as it was quickly becoming one of her favorite haunts, she had no trouble finding it.

Lily had learned the way around Hogwarts easily with the experience of her older siblings and her natural curious tendencies. But the end of her first year Lily was confident that she'd found most of the secret passageways and shortcuts in the castle and she hardly ever got caught out in the halls when she wasn't supposed to be, especially with the aid of the Marauders Map.

Al usually held onto the map because he was older, but when he graduated, the map would pass to Lily. Or, it would have if Filch hadn't confiscated it. That hadn't been too long before her time travel incident. Lily and Al had been planning various rescue missions for the precious artifact but none of their efforts had been successful so far.

Lily wished she had the map now, wandering the corridors with classes taking place on either side of her when she was supposed to be in class herself. But she was fairly sure that it was tucked safely in her father's trunk up in Gryffindor Tower.

When this thought had first occurred to Lily, she'd gone through a few minutes of quiet panic, questions pouring through her brain in rapid succession. It would show her real name and then what would happen? How would her father react to seeing another Potter on the map? What would Dumbledore say? Would she be able to stay here with her cover blown?

But Lily didn't worry too much about those things anymore. She'd seen Harry in the common room, scouring the map in search of Draco Malfoy and if he hadn't come across her yet he probably wouldn't. Peter Pettigrew had spent a whole year in their _dorm_ while Harry had been in possession of the map and they'd never noticed _him_. There were hundreds of dots on that map and the odds that anyone would notice here was unlikely unless searching for it.

Lily reached the stairs of the Astronomy Tower and let out a breath of relief. She climbed up to the top with ease and opened the door wide, stepping out into the cool, fresh air.

Confident that no one was going to find her, Lily took a seat beside one of the large brass telescopes and crossed her legs. She was so far up that any sounds issuing from the grounds were absent. There was only the breeze rustling her red hair in her ears and the gentle tick of her watch, always on her wrist, a constant reminder to Lily of her family back home. Lily breathed deeply and closed her eyes, imagining that she was back home with her family and friends. Up there, alone, she could pretend that Al was floors below, passing notes to his friends rather than take notes, that Hugo was covering for her skipping class.

She didn't know how long she stayed up in the Astronomy Tower, but when her stomach began to rumble, Lily decided it was time to head back down. Maybe she'd get something from the kitchens, as she didn't feel like eating in the Great Hall much. However as she stood and stretched, the door behind her swung open and all kitchen plans vanished.

Professor Snape stood before her, looking even grimmer than usual, his black robes in stark contrast to the brilliant blue sky shining above. His arms were crossed smugly and there was a hint of a sneer on his face.

Without preamble he said, "You weren't in class this morning, Ms. McGonagall." Lily felt that this didn't really need stating. They both knew that already. But she kept her face expressionless.

"I didn't feel well." The excuse came automatically but she knew that it was no good. Snape was ready for this.

"Madame Pomfrey has not seen any patients today." His sneer became more pronounced. "If you were ill, why did you not go see her?"

"I didn't want to trouble her?" Lily cringed as her response came out in a question and she knew it was a lost cause.

Snape knew this as well and turned to hold the door open, gesturing her to descend the stairs. "You look well enough to me, Ms. McGonagall. Certainly well enough for a visit of the headmaster's office, I'd say."

* * *

The Department of Mysteries was bathed in a strange blue light, the only thing that could penetrate the thick blindfolds worn by James and his colleagues. It was nothing at all what James had expected but considering he hadn't known _what_ to expect, this wasn't saying much. 

He, Elaine, and Walter Higgins were escorted down to the Department by Olsen Smith, an Unspeakable who looked to James to be about a hundred years old. He seemed to be generally crotchety and impatient with them, Elaine especially. When they'd been presented with the blindfolds, Elaine had laughed at Smith who looked back stonily.

"You expect us to wear blindfolds?" She laughed again and made to hand the blindfold back to the man in front of her. He looked utterly unimpressed and did not reach for the blindfold.

"It's the Department of _Mysteries_," he said blandly. "How else do you think it's remained all mysterious for this long?"

Elaine's smile had dropped in half a second and she glanced at James and Walter, her shoulders sagging, before tying the cloth around her head. James had smirked over at Walter and the two of them followed Elaine's lead.

Now, they were on their way to what felt like the heart of the department, they'd gone through a spinning room with flickering light, long corridors, and always there was the constant impression of blue. As they walked, James tried to get an idea of how deep into the ministry they were going. He tried to remember the turns they took, left, right, right again, but everything fell apart with that spinning room. By the time their blindfolds were removed, James was quite effectively lost.

Suddenly regaining his sight, James blinked a few times, took a look around and couldn't hold in a gasp. Beside him, Elaine's mouth was open in awe and Walter let out a low whistle. Straight ahead of them was a long line of shelves covered, from what he could see, with time turners. He thought instantly of Lily and the shattered time turner that was the only clue as to what had happened to her.

"Took us years to replace all those," Smith growled when he'd seen James staring. "Only just recently finished. They were all smashed a while back when Death Eaters got into the place."

James had a sneaking suspicion that his father may have been involved in that incident as well. He smirked slightly and finally tore his gaze away from the time turners to take in the rest of the room. There were a great number of desks and tables lining the walls with all sorts of strange objects James didn't recognize. Elaine and Walter were already wandering around the room under the careful gaze of Olsen Smith. The blue light was present here too, most of it coming from a strange bell jar seated on one of the many desks.

He walked up behind Elaine, who'd strayed over to the bell jar and noticed that it had the strangest contents. It appeared to be filled with a kind of wind, but in the center, there was something moving up and down, and changing. At the top, there was a hummingbird, fluttering its bright wings, but the bird was descending, and as it did so it became smaller, its feathers turning more into fluff, and then, when it reached the bottom of the jar, it became an egg. As the egg began to rise again, the hummingbird emerged and grew back into its adult form.

"What is it?" Elaine breathed in wonder, hardly blinking as she watched the bird's progress.

"I think it's _time_," James replied, tearing his eyes away to gaze around the room again. Everything here seemed to have something to do with time.

"I didn't know Terry Boot worked with _time_ of all things," Elaine said.

Walter had come up and joined them. "Well," he said, "no one really knows what any of the Unspeakables do, do they?" He clapped his hands sharply and Elaine jumped. "Let's get to work, shall we?"

The three of them turned to Olsen Smith who had been watching them. "I'll go get the boy, then," he offered, referring to Boot who was hardly a boy. Elaine bobbed her head eagerly and Walter nodded once in agreement. But James had turned towards the time turners again, suddenly not very interested in what had happened to Terry Boot. If he was lucky, if he could just have a look around, maybe he could find a way to bring his sister back.

* * *

Lily scuffed her shoes on the stone floor of the corridors as she followed slowly behind Snape. As they made their way to Professor Dumbledore's office, Lily scowled at the back of Snape's head, wondering once again what this man had ever done to earn her father's respect. 

When they reached the stone gargoyle that steadfastly guarded the entrance to the headmaster's office, Snape offered the password, Fizzing Whizbee, with a sour face. Lily had the urge to giggle at his discomfort but restrained herself.

They climbed the revolving stairs and at the top, Snape knocked on the large wooden door leading into the office. He was answered by Dumbledore's pleasant voice granting them entry. Lily stepped in after Snape, always interested in the very _magical_ contents of the room. She wasn't disappointed. As usual, the office hummed with the sounds of the strange silver objects on the tables and along the shelves. Behind Dumbledore's desk sat his phoenix, who trilled contentedly. The sound made Lily smile just slightly.

Dumbledore looked up from his desk. "Ah, Severus. And Ms. McGonagall. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

His tone was light, but Lily was sure that he already had a good idea as to why they were there. Lily was quickly realizing that Albus Dumbledore was a strange man, but a very, very clever one.

"Ms. McGonagall has been skipping classes," Snape said, stepping aside so as to give Dumbledore a clearer view of the accused. Lily arranged her face to be as expressionless as she could make it.

"Indeed?"

"She neglected to attend my class this morning and was not missing due to illness. I found her occupying the Astronomy Tower."

Dumbledore was nodding, staring at Lily with those piercing blue eyes. She stared right back, not defiant, but not exactly apologetic either. She shuffled nervously after a moment or two of silence while Dumbledore considered the situation and Snape waited for the verdict.

"Severus, I would like to speak to Patrice alone for a few moments. If you would wait outside." It wasn't a question, and Snape stepped out of the office without complaint. Lily didn't put it past him to be listening at the door though. She stared after him suspiciously.

"Please take a seat," Dumbledore offered, gesturing to one of the cushioned seats that faced his desk. Lily sat in the nearest one.

"I would ask you why you neglected to attend Professor Snape's lesson, but I'm sure we both already know the answer to that, Ms. Potter." Lily glanced nervously at the door, thinking of Snape, before looking at the floor.

Dumbledore was silent and Lily finally looked up to see him looking older than he'd yet appeared to her. It troubled her for some reason.

"I just want to go home," she whispered. "I don't belong here, why pretend that I do?"

Dumbledore considered her for a moment before answering. "I wish I could get you home, Lily," he said earnestly.

"But you can't, can you?"

"As of right now… no, I'm afraid I can't."

Lily wanted to be angry with Professor Dumbledore, but looking up at him she found she couldn't. He was supposed to be able to do _anything_, but he couldn't help her. Lily had heard so many stories about the man sitting before her, but as far as she knew, even Albus Dumbledore hadn't encountered a problem quite like this one before. No, Lily wasn't angry with Dumbledore, it wasn't his fault. She was angry that she _couldn't remember_ how she'd gotten here, that she hadn't been able to help at all. Everything from that night was still just a blank. Not only was she stuck in the _past_, a ridiculous idea in itself, she didn't even know _why_.

"You'll keep trying?" Lily asked, just for something to say, wanting to hear something reassuring.

"Until you are safely back where you belong, Lily." Lily nodded, staring down at the carpet.

"However, Ms. Potter, I'm afraid that until that is the case, you need to continue attending classes."

Lily's eyes shot back up to stare at the headmaster. "Why?" she asked defiantly. "What exactly is that accomplishing?"

"Your education is important, Lily." She opened her mouth to protest, but Dumbledore held up a hand and remained quiet. "Were that the only reason, I would gladly grant you leave of your classes given your circumstances, but I believe they help to keep your mind off more distressing subjects. Sitting and stewing in your situation will not help you."

He had a point, but Lily didn't want to see it.

"I don't want to be distracted!" she argued. "I don't want to sit and pretend that everything's normal! It's _not!_ There's nothing normal about this! There's nothing normal about attending classes with your _mother_ or being taught by your headmistress or worrying about how your family's doing while knowing that your brothers haven't even been _born_ yet! _I_ haven't even been born yet!"

Dumbledore gestured for her to keep her voice down, to calm her, but Lily found that now she'd started saying all this, she didn't want to stop. Dumbledore was one of the two people here who knew her real story and it was easier to say all this to him than to Professor McGonagall, someone she felt she knew, someone who wasn't dead in her time.

"I don't want to know my sixteen-year-old father, I want to see my _dad_. I miss my family, my friends, my life. Nothing I have here is real!

"I can't remember how I got here, what happened to me to send me here and I'm angry with myself because surely, _surely_, I should be able to remember _something!_ I don't want to be in 1997 anymore!"

Lily came to an abrupt stop and took a deep breath, suddenly realizing that she was on her feet. In the silence that ensued Lily and Professor Dumbledore heard a sudden scuffle outside the door. They were both still for a moment before Dumbledore rose from his chair and walked swiftly over, swinging the door wide. Lily's heart fluttered in her chest. _Has someone heard? Snape?_

Lily let her mouth open in surprise at the scene that appeared through the doorway. Professor Snape was still there but he was not alone. His fist was gripped tightly around Harry's collar while Harry himself had his wand out pointed at Snape's chest, a furious expression on his face that somewhat frightened Lily.

"What is going on here?" Dumbledore asked, not loudly but with such fierce authority that Lily took a step away from him. She was glad that she couldn't see his eyes; she was sure they were furious and frightening.

Neither of the two wizards Dumbledore was addressing seemed to want to answer, or indeed to hear the headmaster at all.

"Lower your wand you _petulant_ child," Snape was snarling, gripping Harry's shirt tighter, close to shaking him. Harry did not lower his wand.

"Severus, you will release Harry _now_. Harry, _lower your wand_."

From what Lily could see, Harry seemed to suddenly realize that Professor Dumbledore was there. He glanced swiftly at the headmaster before turning back to Snape. Snape let go of Harry's collar but Harry only half lowered his wand. Lily had rarely seen her father so angry and had forgotten how much it troubled her. She took another step away from the door but made sure that she still had a clear view of the scene before her. She was entranced, too stunned to look away. None of the other three seemed at all conscious that Lily was there at all.

"What's happened?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry jumped in before Snape had a chance to. "_Him!_" he shouted. "Snape's what's happened! He told Voldemort about the prophecy, it was _him_, _he_ listened outside the door, Trelawney told me!"

Lily blinked in confusion. _Prophecy?_

Snape's expression changed so rapidly that Lily would have missed it had she blinked. His outrage remained, but there was something deeper now, like pain.

"_Don't talk about what you don't understand!_" he nearly shouted, but Harry ignored him entirely.

Dumbledore chose not to respond to Snape for the moment and spoke to Harry instead.

"When did you find out about this?"

"Just now!" Harry's voice sounded strangled. "AND YOU LET HIM TEACH HERE AND HE TOLD VOLDEMORT TO GO AFTER MY MUM AND DAD!"

Lily's hand flew to her mouth. She backed into a plush sofa that sat against the wall and collapsed onto it.

Snape, lost in anger, shoved Harry against the wall and Harry raised his wand again, right at Snape's heart.

"_ENOUGH!_"

The two wizards sprang apart at Dumbledore's shout, though it was obvious to Lily even from across the room that this was not of their own accord. They walked further into the circular office and Snape stood off to one side. Harry froze at the sight of Lily in the room. He clearly hadn't realized that anyone else was around. Once again, he'd caught her listening in on something she shouldn't have heard, as had happened after he'd cursed the Malfoy boy. Harry's cheeks, already flushed with anger, turned a slightly darker shade of pink. He glanced over at Dumbledore who appeared unconcerned with Lily's presence and more interested in Harry and Snape's conflict.

Lily stared between Harry and Snape, lost. They clearly, _clearly_, loathed each other as much as humanly possible. How could so much change in one year, one year with Snape at Hogwarts and Harry travelling all over the country? How could the two reconcile when there was already so much standing in their way? "I don't understand," Lily whispered, though she hadn't meant to speak.

"You wouldn't," Harry spat at her, annoyed.

His tone made Lily blink, shocked by his tone. He wasn't really angry with _her_, was he? She had never heard her father speak to her in such a _dismissive_ way before. His face was flushed he was breathing hard, his eyes casting all around the room as if looking for an escape. As she watched him, some of Lily's earlier anger resurfaced above her shock. She leaned forward from her seat on the couch and held her chin high. She didn't intend on going anywhere. But it seemed Dumbledore had other plans.

He turned to her and said sharply, "Ms. McGonagall, if you would excuse us, please?"

All three of the room's other occupants settled on her expectantly. She looked around at them all and bit her lip. Snape's gaze was the most troubling, his black eyes searching her face for something. Again, as she always noticed when around Snape, there was the feeling that he almost knew her from somewhere. It made her very uneasy. She glanced between Snape and Harry, Harry's words sounding in her head. _He told Voldemort to go after my mum and dad!_

She couldn't think straight. What was going on?

"Did you really do that?" she asked Snape accusingly, sitting up still straighter, challenging him but not rising from her seat. The look on Snape's face was enough of an answer. The tall man stood rigid, looking miserable, as if he'd rather be anywhere else. She shuddered slightly and looked away. She didn't see Snape crumble a little at her obvious disapproval.

Harry was looking uncomfortable as well. Lily was sure he'd just noticed the strange interaction between herself and Professor Snape and was sure that it was sinking in that he'd just spilled family secrets in front of her. "Why do you care?" he asked, his voice slightly strangled.

For a moment, Lily considered this. She wanted to tell Harry that she cared because he was her _dad_, because they were _her_ family too, but she couldn't. Instead, she remained silent, not knowing what to do now. The room was unnaturally silent.

Snape turned to Dumbledore as well. "Albus, who _is_ this girl?"

Dumbledore took a moment before answering. He appeared to be weighing his options, considering possible scenarios, and Lily suddenly felt nervous. Was he going to tell them the truth, blow her secret? His expression became suddenly determined and Lily found herself holding her breath. The rest of the air in the room seemed to still in anticipation.

Lily wished frantically to be back at home, for all of this to be a terrible dream. But she wasn't waking up.

"She is _not_ Patrice McGonagall. I'm sure you are no longer convinced of this, Severus," Dumbledore relented.

Lily saw Harry glance at her curiously. Her heartbeat was quickening. He wasn't going to tell them, he just _couldn't_! She opened her mouth to protest, to shout at Dumbledore, to scream in frustration, but no sound came out.

"Her name is Lily," Dumbledore continued and Lily stood from her seat on the couch and found her voice.

"No, you promised!" she exclaimed, her voice cracking with urgency. _This isn't happening!_

Panic was filling her up, fogging her thinking. All eyes had settled on her and Lily wished frantically to bolt from the room, but her path was blocked by Harry and Snape. And there wasn't anywhere she could go they wouldn't find her, was there?

"Lily," Snape breathed, and something about the way he said it made Lily even more uncomfortable. She stepped away from him, her legs knocking into the couch behind her.

"Lily who?" Harry asked hesitantly.

Lily looked at her sixteen-year-old father and felt tears of frustration and fatigue prickle behind her eyes.

"Lily Potter," Dumbledore said and in the wake of his quiet voice, silence fell.

* * *

**AN- sorry for the wait, you guys. Next one shouldn't take nearly as long. On the plus side, this one's a bit longer than usual and I feel the end is exciting! Please let me know what you think!**

**Some quotes at the end come straight from HBP.**

**Much, much, endless thanks to ellaminnowpea, my beta! You guys have no idea how much this chapter improved because of all her help!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven- What Then, Is Time?**

_What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know. _

_-Saint Augustine _

* * *

Terry Boot walked slowly through the familiar halls of time where he'd worked for going on twenty years now. He rubbed his temples absently, straining his brain once again to find his memories.

"Too much prying," he muttered, frustrated, as he thought of strangers picking through his head. But he had agreed and he was on his way to that appointment now. Terry knew very easily that he did not like the idea of someone else wandering through his mind to find memories and he wasn't even sure that they were in his head to find at all. 

He wasn't used to forgetting things. As he took in the walls and objects that surrounded him, Terry felt as though they had stolen his memories themselves, hidden them away just out of reach. They were here somewhere, he knew, as if he'd dropped them and they were hiding away in a corner, gathering dust and waiting to be swept up.

Terry despised the idea of his mind sitting idle, gathering dust. Terry was the epitome of a Ravenclaw and Ravenclaws stayed sharp.

In a few short minutes Terry knew he'd reached his destination when he heard muffled voices coming from the other side of the vast time turner shelves. He paused, shoved his hands into his pockets and listened to the unintelligible murmuring that drifted to his ears. As he stood there, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet, Terry recognized a few male voices, and one voice that was decidedly female and overly excited. 

Terry sighed quietly, resigning himself to their inevitable prying. Stepping around the towering shelves, he instantly spotted Olsen Smith, one of his coworkers, and three very young-looking and wide-eyed employees from the Experimental Charms Department.

Their hushed voices silenced when they saw him and he smiled almost convincingly and held out his hand.

"Hello," he greeted them warmly. "I'm Terry." This seemed superfluous. They knew who he was.

He shook each of their hands in turn, nodding as they introduced themselves. Elaine Goodrich, Walter Higgins, _James Potter_.

Terry had been in the same year as Harry Potter at Hogwarts, had taken a class here or there with him, had been in Dumbledore's Army in his fifth year. Harry was a very likeable sort of guy but he and Terry but had never been very close. He did know that Harry had always looked uncomfortable when a spectacle was made on his behalf and so Terry had the good grace to ignore James's last name and move one.

"It's very nice to meet all of you," he said with only mediocre conviction and they smiled nervously. He could see their eyes flicking off in every direction, their faces lit with the pale blue light, their expressions betraying that they were very eager to take everything in, to explore, to learn. Terry knew the feeling well; it never really faded even after working in the department for almost two decades. _Department of Mysteries, indeed_, he thought, smirking.

Terry was saved reeling their attention back in when Olsen spoke up. His gravelly voice was clipped and annoyed.

"We have some work to get to, folks. Young Mr. Boot here is missing some memories."

Terry saw Elaine's face light up with excitement and he repressed a sigh. 

"I hope you're ready, Mr. Boot!" she said.

"Well," Terry considered blandly, "I don't think I'll ever be ready to have my head inspected but as I don't really have a choice…." He trailed off, realizing that this must have sounded insulting to their jobs and smiled a little to make light of his comment.

"How _are_ we getting started then?" he asked.

He looked to James or Walter to respond, not at all convinced that Elaine wouldn't faint from excitement any moment now. James seemed distracted, his gaze lingering frequently on the time turners a few yards away.

"Well first we'll be asking you a series of questions first in an attempt to narrow down the incident." Walter began patiently. "Then we have some charms we've been developing that we'd like to try."

Elaine nodded eagerly. "They're quite good," she insisted. "You shouldn't even feel anything at all!"

Terry tried to hide his discomfort with this whole idea of someone else in his head. Questions he could do but he'd been asking himself countless questions since he'd lost his memories and had come up with no answers. Those were lost as well. He doubted that they would find anything new.

"They should undo at least some of the memory loss," James put in, his voice calm and reassuring. "And even if we don't find anything, they'll be no harm done. We promise."

They stood for a moment more in awkward silence before, grumbling, Olsen summoned a hard wooden chair for each of them and they all took their seats. Terry cleared his throat nervously. "Let's get started, shall we?"

* * *

In the oppressive silence, Lily could feel her heart thudding in her chest, could almost hear it beat steadily along, keeping her alive, breathing, standing despite the fact that her legs felt hollow and weak. She closed her eyes for a moment and wished for some sort of noise or commotion, a distraction because the moment Dumbledore had uttered her name, her situation had become alarmingly real. Lily felt ill-equipped to cope.

She also felt as though she'd been caught out of bed after hours or in the restricted section of the library. Lily had the distinct impression that she had done something _wrong_ and when she opened her eyes again only Snape was gazing at her accusingly, as was Harry but when she looked at him she also saw confusion, curiosity, and denial.

She had no answers to their silent questions, not even for her own.

Lily looked at Dumbledore, wondering _why_ he had told them her name when it was his insistence that it be a secret in the first place. She could see in his tired face, in his eyes, that he'd seen no other way out than the truth and seeing how _old_ he looked, Lily felt her anger melt away. He had carried the burden of her identity as much as she had and it had been hard, she knew.

Turning her eyes away from Dumbledore, Lily looked at Snape only to find the tall, darkly-clad potions professor staring back at her. He looked, as he had many times before, as if he'd been searching for something in her face, in her eyes. As always, it made her deeply uncomfortable and so she looked away, at the last person in the room.

Harry, her father in a way, but a sixteen-year-old version, looked right back at her with a face, Lily realized, just like Al's. Once again, she felt a pang in her stomach at not having her family around. She felt the way Harry looked, lost, unsure what to believe.

The conviction in Snape's brief interrogation of the headmaster had shown plainly that he would accept nothing but the truth and wouldn't leave until he'd gotten it. His slow voice broke through the silence.

"Albus, if you expect us to believe-"

But Harry cut him off, stepping forward. "What exactly _is_ it that you expect us to believe?" he began hotly.  
"There's no way that she's my mum."

Lily's eyebrows rose in surprise and she thought of the grandmother she'd never met. It had never occurred to her that anyone would mistake her for her grandmother, nor for Harry to put it so bluntly. 

_How ridiculous,_ she thought and then paused. _Then again, I'm in _1997_, who am I to say what's normal? I haven't even been born yet._

When there was another moment of silence, Lily expected Snape to make a scathing reply as Harry's cheeks reddened, but instead he looked to Dumbledore and said in a strained voice, "Lily Evans is _dead_, Albus. And this girl is fifteen years old. Lily Potter would be close to forty now."

"Who said anything about _Evans_?" Lily asked loudly, not at all pleased with this misunderstanding. They were talking about her as if she wasn't even there! They were talking as if she was her grandmother. The way Snape said the name _Lily Evans_, almost with a caress in his voice, made the present Lily squirm with discomfort. It had obviously left a sour taste in Harry's mouth as well from the way he was looking at the professor. 

Like Dumbledore, Lily found herself volunteering a bit of fact and she sympathized with the headmaster.

"Lily Evans was my _grandmother_."

* * *

"So you were preparing to leave for the day? You had finished your work?"

"I remember packing up my things, yes. I was ready to leave."

The interviewing was moving along slower than Terry would have liked. The three charms workers were careful not to let the smallest detail slip between the cracks but how many times could he tell them he'd packed his briefcase before they believed him?

_At least, _he thought, _they show good attention to detail_.

It was nice to know that they were serious about this endeavor- it made it easier to trust them with his memories. But he was still _thoroughly_ uncomfortable. Terry shifted his weight in his chair again and tried in vain to stop his foot from tapping nervously on the floor.

"And the last thing you remember is walking to the exit? Or is it before that, finishing up at your desk?"

Terry's eyebrows scrunched together in thought but he found it hard to concentrate with Olsen's ragged breathing and the tapping of Elaine's quill as she fidgeted in her seat. He closed his eyes in an attempt to push away his surroundings and the dull ache that had begun to press at the base of his skull. 

"I'd packed up my things," he said slowly to keep the context firmly in place. "And I was walking…" He could see himself lift his bag over this shoulder, could hear his footsteps echo on the floor as he made his way to the exit. He heard a rustling, shuffling, a frustrated and hushed voice.

Terry opened his eyes and looked at his interviewers. "Sorry, what was that?" he asked, thinking he'd been so deep in thought that he'd missed another question.

"We didn't say anything," Elaine told him, a perplexed look on her face. She leaned forward, her head tilting to one side.

"I thought I heard…" Something lingered tentatively on the edge of his mind that he couldn't quite grasp. He tried to reach for it, but his head started to throb. Terry raised a hand up to the back of his neck and rubbed tiredly at it, trying hard to focus.

"You were walking…" Walter prompted patiently.

"I was walking," Terry repeated. He turned his head to stare up at the ceiling, which was glowing blue along with everything else. What had happened next? Behind him he had heard a voice. A rummaging.

_Someone else was there with me!_

Terry winced as this thought flooded to the front of his mind and he let out a small moan of pain. He clenched his eyes shut and rubbed his palms against them.

"What's wrong?" Elaine asked, her voice a higher pitch than usual.

"Did you remember something else?" James asked cautiously.

Terry nodded slowly as if he was afraid the memory would slip out his ears if he weren't careful. He looked up and saw their surprised faces. Even Olsen seemed intrigued rather than his usual indifference or frustration.

"I think there was someone else there," he said quietly, his eyes darting around the vast room half wondering if he would see a figure in the shadows.

"I thought you said you were the last to leave?" James asked, not accusingly, but his voice was focused. When Terry turned to answer he noticed that for the first time, he had the young man's full attention.

Walter nodded along with James question, his eyebrows raised. "You were working late," he said.

"Who was it?" Elaine asked, a little impatiently.

Terry scowled, affronted by Elaine's tone. He wasn't hoarding information.

"I don't know," he admitted. "And I _was_ working late. I thought I was the last one there for the night because I'd seen everyone else leave but… I suppose it's possible someone came back. Maybe they forgot something."

This sounded a little shallow when he said it aloud.

"Is it possible that it wasn't a Department of Mysteries worker?" James asked as he leaned forward in his chair to rest his elbows on his knees.

"You guys do get maintenance down here, right?" Walter suggested. "Maybe someone was just doing a bit of straightening up."

Terry shook his head to Walter and sighed, not knowing what to think. "Maintenance only comes between noon and one and then only under strict surveillance. And the department was the most well-guarded of any at the Ministry, but it's not impenetrable." 

Not to mention that security was less stringent at night, especially in times like these with no threat of any Dark Lord, or the next Lord Voldemort but Terry didn't feel comfortable mentioning this. He didn't like the idea of anyone entering the department without authorization but he couldn't rule out the option.

"I mean," he continued. "It's happened before, non-authorized personnel in the area. It usually happens late, when it's just the night guard on duty."

"So you don't remember who it was?" Elaine asked, clearly disappointed. "No name, face, nothing?"

Terry tried to remember, more hopeful than he had been in a few days. His hope was fading quickly though and as it slipped away his headache grew, the pounding in the back of his head more insistent than ever. It was almost as if it was warning him off something. Terry let his head fall into his hands and his fingers went up into his hair.

"I don't know," he said, his frustration evident even muffled through his hands. Terry raised his head and felt defeated. "I can't remember anything after that."

There was a short moment of silence and then Elaine opened her mouth to say something but before she got the chance, Walter clapped a hand on her shoulder and said, "Well, shall we move on then?" He pulled out his wand and James and Elaine followed suit. Terry fought the reflex to pull his own out in return, in defense. Some habits stayed forever.

"Ready?" Elaine was fidgeting excitedly and James was staring at the time turners again. Walter cleared his throat and nodded to James who jerked his gaze back to Terry and the others and nodded back.

"I'll just be spotting," Walter said confidently before adding, "Along with Olsen here, of course." 

Elaine walked over to where Terry was standing and he stood. He was much taller than she was but her eagerness and her confidence seemed to add to her height. "You shouldn't feel a thing" she said, not overly convincing in Terry's opinion and then she placed her wand on his temple. Terry felt a rush of nervousness over take him but he swallowed hard and nodded, wondering what they would find.

He wondered if, after he knew, he'd be glad that he'd remembered it at all.

* * *

It took a moment for Lily's words to sink entirely into Harry's mind. He'd already processed so much unexpected information this evening, this new shock caused his brain to move sluggishly in protest. The words from the girl in front of him hung thickly in the air, out in the open.

_Lily Evans was my grandmother_. 

"Impossible," he said to no one in particular but loudly and with conviction. Harry looked to Dumbledore, as usual, for answers to the obscurities that seemed to crop up so frequently. But Dumbledore seemed neither surprised nor disagreeing with the, what had to be, blatant lie.

"I think I would know if I had a kid!" Harry insisted. "Not to mention that she's _fifteen_."

Harry felt that this shouldn't even need refuting. Had he missed something here, something that was keeping Dumbledore so frustratingly calm? He didn't have a daughter. A daughter named Lily. A daughter with red hair and brown eyes and who looked so _familiar_.

A _fifteen-year-old_ daughter.

Harry couldn't explain why was his throat suddenly so dry. He looked expectantly at Dumbledore, waiting for him to say something. Dumbledore looked unnaturally frail but held Harry's gaze and said quietly, in a resigned sort of way, "Ah, but time is fluid, Harry. You have experienced this."

Lily snorted lightly and half rolled her eyes. Harry caught her gaze but looked away again quickly. He didn't want her to be there. He could feel her watching him.

_A daughter? Time is fluid? What did this mean?_

Harry remembered, very vividly, the night he and Hermione had used her time turner. It felt like so long ago, but it was all clear in his head. He remembered leading Buckbeak away from Hagrid's pumpkin patch. He remembered conjuring his first _real_ patronus. He remembered Sirius flying away and wondering when he'd hear from him again.

_What is time?_

The headmaster's office was quiet again, but this silence was not so oppressive as before. The sun outside the window was sinking quickly and Harry stared at the orange light it splashed on the floor while he tried to comprehend that, maybe, the daughter he would someday have was standing just feet away. He looked anywhere but at her, this girl he hadn't even met, hadn't given a second thought to until now. He didn't look at Dumbledore, he didn't want more riddles. And he tried to pretend as though Snape was not there at all.

What was he supposed to do?

What did this mean about his future?

Harry didn't think about the future very much, it was hard with the threat of Voldemort growing ever heavier on his shoulders. He didn't like to think too much about an _after, _didn't want plan so far ahead he lost sight of the present. But was the proof in front of him that there _would _be a life after, for him? He looked at Lily and saw that she was watching him while she twisted her hair in her hands. He was struck by how real was. She cleared her throat a little and her eyebrows scrunched together but she held his gaze steadily.

Snape flinched suddenly, his hand jerking reflexively to his left forearm where Harry knew the Dark Mark had to be scalding him, leering silently from where it sat, inked into his skin. Voldemort was calling.

"Go, Severus," Dumbledore said quietly to his professor and Harry saw Lily look up in surprise. Her mouth opened slightly and her eyebrows raised up into her forehead.

"I won't have to go far, Headmaster. They are _here_."

"Who?" Lily asked, looking around at all of them, her shoulders slumped and her head tilted slightly to the side.

Harry paused a moment but when neither Dumbledore nor Snape responded he said frankly, looking her right in the eyes, "Death Eaters."

She stared right back at him and he saw fear there, fear of the unknown. "At Hogwarts?" Harry saw her struggle with the idea, as if she could hardly imagine the idea of a Death Eater and for some reason, this made him feel lighter inside. He marveled at her apparent innocence, and felt his mouth quirking up in a smile before he caught himself.

And then, as Snape swept from the room on Dumbledore's orders, the reality of it sunk into Harry as well.

_There are Death Eaters at Hogwarts_.

Harry thought of Malfoy and what he'd been planning, because he'd been planning _something_. He wondered _why_ Dumbledore had called him up to his office this evening. He hadn't found out in all that had happened since. He thought about horcruxes. And he thought about Ron and Hermione and _Ginny_ somewhere in the castle. Did they know about the Death Eaters? Did anyone but Snape know?

Lily's face was white with fear and Harry opened his mouth to say something to her, to reassure her, he thought he should, but before he got the chance Dumbledore was in front of him, his hands, one of them black and dead looking, resting on his shoulders. He blocked Lily from view.

"Harry, I need you to listen to me very carefully."

Harry nodded, not prepared to deny Dumbledore anything in this state. He had rarely seen the headmaster so vehement.

"After tonight, I will explain things to you more clearly if I can but for now you must _listen_."

The grip on Harry's shoulders tightened and he nodded more earnestly this time. "Yes, of course."

"There is a cave," Dumbledore said, his light blue eyes boring into Harry's own. "In this cave, there is, I am certain, a very important object, a _locket_, do you understand?"

_A horcrux_. "Yes."

"This cave is the one Tom visited as a boy. You remember the story?"

Harry did. Mrs. Cole, from the orphanage, had said that those other two children, they'd never been the same…. 

"I remember," he said.

"If you have to, you can find it." It wasn't a question, but Harry nodded anyway. And before Harry knew what was happening, Dumbledore had given his shoulders a squeeze and then he rushed out of the office, his voluminous cloak sweeping out behind him. He was off to defend his students, his colleagues, and his school and Harry and Lily were left standing alone in the office as the last rays of the sun faded into night.

* * *

Even as James stood, preparing to dive into someone else's mind, he couldn't keep his own in one place. His thoughts darted between the time turners next to him to Lily and the briefly to Terry Boot's memory loss and then back to Lily again.

They didn't exactly cover miles of new ground with their investigation; most of it had been in the report. But James couldn't help but be interested in this new character that had cropped up. He didn't know how significant that someone else had been here when Terry had lost his memory, but he couldn't help but think something sinister was happening. It wasn't everyday that someone sneaked into the Department of Mysteries and loitered around the time turners.

He wanted to ask the Unspeakable how they worked, what happened if you broke them, anything that might help them understand what had happened to Lily.

The only other person James knew who knew anything about time turners was his Aunt Hermione but even as resourceful as she was, and the smartest witch James knew, Hermione had been just as frustrated as the rest of the family in the lack of information on the subject. She had even paid a visit to the vast Hogwarts library and come back with nothing more substantial that a story of a man who had become his own grandfather.

_Just ask_, he thought. _Terry must know something helpful_.

But as he told himself this, James realized that it was too late. Elaine was already standing beside Terry and she raised her wand up to his temple.

Terry looked distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of them drawing their wands on him, preparing to tinker with his memory and James couldn't really blame him.

"How exactly is this going to work?" Terry asked, his eyes darting between Elaine's eager face and James, who was standing a few feet away.

It was Walter who answered. He stepped forward and rested one of his hands of Terry's shoulder. "Elaine is going to be performing the charms we've developed and James is going to be looking at your memories."

Terry continued to look skeptical and his posture did not relax. James smiled reassuringly at him and said, "Often what happens with memory loss is that they're not _erased_ really. It's more like parchment with an ink stain. You can't read what's written there any more, but it's still _there_." 

James took a small step forward. "I'm going to be placing my wand on your other temple," he said, his voice calm. "Just relax."

Terry looked at James and nodded; he seemed to be catching on. He shifted his weight and said, "So it's a bit like legilimency then?"

"Yes," Elaine chirped in excitedly. "That's actually where we got the idea. But it's different because in legilimency, you can only see what's on the surface, what the recipient sees. With the charms we've developed, we can look deeper." She let out a nervous giggle. "Theoretically."

"Theoretically," Terry repeated, thoroughly uncomfortable, his expression conveying that this was no laughing matter. "Well, best get on with it then."

And so they did. 

The first attempt was nothing short of abysmal as _nothing_ happened. Elaine stood to Terry's left, her eyes shut in concentration and her mouth moving silently as she worked through the complex incantations. James saw her hesitate at one point and her muttering paused. He glanced over at Walter who grimaced in return.

When Elaine continued, her face no longer contorted with intense concentration, James readied himself to enter Terry's head but he waited in vain.

"No, that's not it," Elaine said as she opened her eyes and stamped one foot in frustration. "I got the order mixed up."

Walter raised an eyebrow at her and James held back a laugh. "I remember now!" she said defensively.

"Reassuring," Terry muttered just loud enough to be heard by everyone else.

"You sure your lot know what they're doing?" Olsen Smith growled to Walter who nodded confidently without looking at Smith.

"Just try again, Elaine."

Terry sighed and James put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry," he said, his voice low. "No part of this can hurt you or your mind at all."

Elaine began again, her stance more determined and her muttering even faster than before. James stood, watching her carefully and then suddenly she was _gone_. And so was Terry and Walter and Smith. James blinked slowly for a moment before turning to look around him. He was still in the same spot as before, wand still in hand, but the only other person present was a past Terry Boot over at his desk, shuffling through papers.

For a second, James just stood there as he adjusted to being, in a way, inside someone else's head. But it didn't feel like a memory like he'd expected it to. He'd seen memories, before, been in a pensieve, but this was so much crisper, so much more real. He was sure he could walk to the other side of the Department, far away from this Terry, and it would still be just as solid.

He really could see layers that Terry couldn't and his analogy about the ink stain came back to him. It was like vanishing all the excess ink, everything that muddled up the corners. He was inside Terry's head, but at the same time he was in the Ministry and James thought of time travel.

Curious, and with nothing to do while the other Terry continued to clean up his desk, James walked over to the time turners to get a closer look. They were so small, so simple, and yet the damage they could do was enormous. It was hard to believe that just one of these had made Lily disappear. 

_What is it going take to bring her back,_ he wondered sadly.

He reached out a hand, wondering if he could touch them, but then suddenly stopped short, his hand only inches from the shelf in front of him. He could have sworn that, through the gap, he'd seen someone move on the other side of the shelves. Terry was right. There was someone else here, someone who was taking care not to be noticed.

Moving quickly, James strode around the shelves to find the culprit, not sure what he was expecting. He turned the corner, caught sight of a figure in the shadows down the row of shelves. James could tell that the figure moved carefully as if avoiding Terry's line of sight. But James didn't have to worry about that, nor did he have to worry about being heard. In order to catch up he broke into a jog, his footsteps making no sound as they beat on ground that wasn't really there.

James caught up with the mysterious intruder from behind and, walking around them, felt his jaw drop.

What was Pansy Parkinson, reporter for the Daily Prophet, doing in the Department of Mysteries?

* * *

**Chapter seven! I hope you all enjoyed it even if there is another cliffhanger at the end there.**

**Thanks to my simply amazing beta, Ellaminnowpea. **

**I think this chapter has come miles since she last saw it. I hope she'd agree.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight- Of a Memory**

* * *

As James stared at the reporter in front of him his earlier run-in with Pansy Parkinson flooded his mind.

"_Do you really think your department will be able to retrieve _dear_ Terry's memories…? We were in the same year at Hogwarts, you know and such good friends."_

They certainly didn't look like good friends at the moment. Pansy was obviously doing her best to avoid Terry's notice entirely. She moved stealthily behind the shelves of time turners taking care not to let her footsteps be heard by the Unspeakable on the other side. She reached out a hand to grasp one of the shimmering hourglasses in front of her but her sleeve caught on the corner of a shelf and her arm jerked. Several time turners wobbled dangerously and James saw the panic in Pansy's eyes as she held her breath, silently praying that none would fall and shatter.

Terry froze in the act of closing his briefcase. James watched as he turned around from his desk and squinted in the dim blue light for the source of noise but Pansy remained frozen and in shadow, blocked from Terry's view. Terry shook himself and turned away again.

James sighed as he watched this play out fingering his wand edgily and feeling helpless.

Terry's briefcase closed with a clear snap that was loud in the cavernous room. He swung it to his side, the light weight obvious in the ease Terry had with it. Pansy remained still for another second, still frozen like a startled squirrel, and then reached out once again to snatch a time turner from the shelf and into her claws. This time she had no difficulty. Her treasure now free and in her hand, Pansy wrapped it gingerly in a cloth and she slid the hourglass carefully into her pocket, her long shiny fingernails glinting in the blue light.

James remembered those fingernails on a picture in his cubicle.

_"And your sister here, her name is Lily, isn't it? Such a pretty girl."_

James stood perfectly still even as the memory of Pansy brushed past him, her solid form missing him by less than an inch. It briefly occurred to him that he shouldn't touch anything here- he didn't know what would happen. But James didn't care about that. Instead he stared at the spot where she had stood as she stole a time turner and all he could think was to wonder if Pansy Parkinson had had anything to do with Lily's disappearance.

His hands clenched into fists at his side and his heartbeat quickened. If Parkinson had _anything _to do with Lily he'd—

Pansy had recognized Lily from the photo. _Damn it_, why hadn't he realized that she'd recognized Lily from the photo. Of course Parkinson was involved with Lily's disappearance.

Anger flared up inside of James, threatening to boil over. He turned quickly on the spot and ran after the woman that took Lily away. He wouldn't let her get away with this.

"Pansy? Pansy Parkinson? What are you doing here?" The curious voice of Terry Boot interrupted James's furious thoughts as he whirled around the corner running towards Terry and Pansy, his new found adrenaline propelling him forward.

He saw the Unspeakable and the reporter facing each other, all hands visible and no wands in sight. He slowed as he reached them and saw nothing but confusion on Terry's face and a fake smile on Pansy's. She laughed lightly and James flinched unconsciously at the sound. Terry seemed suspicious but made no move towards his wand.

"What are you doing in this Department, Pansy?"

Pansy let out a sigh and said, "I was looking for you, Trevor." She swayed closer to Terry who only raised an eyebrow in return.

"You're not allowed here, Parkinson. How did you get past security?"

"I didn't see any security." Pansy said raising her sculpted eyebrows. She slid her arms around behind her. "I didn't know. I need your help, Trevor."

"It's Terry," Terry told her bluntly, becoming more skeptical with every second that passed.

"Oh, of course," Pansy simpered.

James watched the exchange with some trepidation knowing it would end badly for Terry. He watched the botched reunion between old school mates and the hairs on the back of his neck rose.

"I haven't seen you since Hogwarts, Pansy. What could you possibly need that you came down here?"

Terry's suspicions were growing but he was too slow to catch on. There was something about the way Pansy's hands twisted behind her back. James felt a shiver rush down his spine and he opened his mouth to warn Terry as Pansy pulled her wand from behind her, pointing her wand squarely at Terry's chest with a graceful flourish.

"I need you to forget I was ever here, _Terry_."

Her simpering tone was gone and James shivered at the new, harsh voice. Terry eyed the wand in front of him and then looked back at Pansy's face. She was smirking and her eyes glinted in the blue light that shown all around them.

"Don't worry," she told him. "You won't remember a thing." She raised the wand up level to Terry's head. James stepped forward reflexively, anger and adrenaline moving his arm to reach for his own wand.

He thrust his other arm forward attempting to push Pansy off guard. His blood pumped furiously through his veins and he wanted to do this woman harm, to stop her from hurting anyone but as his hand settled where the cold flesh of Pansy's arm should have been there was nothing but air.

He stumbled forward in what felt like slow motion his very solid body falling through Pansy's intangible one. As he tried to regain his balance he heard Pansy's voice utter the incantation his own lips were forming in dread.

"_Obliviate_."

* * *

Teddy and Albus were in the kitchen, sitting near the floo as had become habit, waiting for news that was unlikely to come.

The only sound in the Potter's kitchen was the restless tap of Al's foot on the hard floor, a steady rhythm but one that was beginning to make Teddy's head pound. Teddy was slouched in his seat staring off into space, waiting for an epiphany.

They had been sitting in the kitchen for a few hours now, not moving, not talking, just sitting. Teddy's stiff muscles began to protest their lack of movement and he sat up straighter, raising an arm to run a hand through his straggly brown hair. He hadn't been able to get anything morphed lately, not even his hair color, and the brown was beginning to irritate him.

Everything irritated him lately.

"Al, will you stop that incessant _tapping_?" he ground out while he made eye contact with the young man across the table.

"Sorry," Al said, clearly not sorry at all and Teddy rolled his eyes and looked away.

They were the only two in the large house, as was common these days. James and Harry had gone back to work and Ginny was too anxious to spend too much time at home. So that left Teddy and Albus and while Teddy was glad to have some company, Al's presence had begun to wear on his patience.

A few minutes of silence later and Al was tapping his foot again, his chin resting on his hand, his eyes closed. Teddy pressed his hands onto his face in frustration.

"Al—"

"_Sorry_," Al said, more insistent this time but no more sincere.

"What's got you so twitchy anyway?" Teddy asked in the hope that conversation would siphon out some of his frustration.

Al shifted his weight restlessly. "It's just that… she had to be out to the map back," he insisted for the hundredth time. "It was found along with the time turner."

Teddy was tired of hearing this by now. He pushed his chair out abruptly, stood, and started pacing. He looked over to see Al waiting for a reply.

"I'm not arguing that, Al," Teddy said and turning his attention to the empty grate.

"But you said you thought she'd been doing something else. Why else would Lily be out in the middle of the night?"

"I'm just suggesting that she may have had another agenda _in addition to_ getting the map back." He paused his pacing and shoved his hands into his pockets. He shrugged his shoulders awkwardly and said, "Where did McGonagall say it was found again?"

"Near the Great Hall I think," Al said tonelessly, losing interest.

"Not very close to Gryffindor Tower _or_ –"

"Filch's office," Al cut in, his expression bitter. "Yeah, I know."

"I'm just trying to help," Teddy told him defensively.

"Well, you're not helping," Al bit out, staring Teddy right in the eyes.

"Well I'm _trying!"_ Teddy shouted the last word, his hair flaring to an angry red.

There was a hush in their argument. Suddenly not so angry any more, Teddy returned to his seat, feeling slightly foolish for his outburst. He fingered his hair absently as its vivid red muted to a more subtle shade.

"Talked to Rose or Hugo lately?" he tried.

Al glared at the table. "I sent them an owl yesterday," he said. "They wish they were here, helping, but I told them not to worry, we weren't doing anything useful anyway."

Sitting idly by didn't suit any of the Potters, nor did it suit Teddy himself.

"Hermione wouldn't pull them out of school," Teddy said with the ghost of a smile. He knew his weak attempts to cheer Al up were useless but it made him feel a little better anyway. As he'd guessed, Al didn't smile but continued to stare at the wooden table in front of him as if it had personally wronged him somehow.

"Where do you think Lily is?" Al asked quietly.

Teddy thought for a moment, not sure how to answer Al without upsetting either of them further.

"I'm not so sure that's the important part," he said and Al looked up at him, his eyebrows crunched together. "I'd say that where and when she disappeared is what we should be focusing on."

* * *

"There are Death Eaters at Hogwarts?" Lily said in a small voice, trying to wrap her mind around the idea that she was living something she'd only ever heard about in stories. She stared at Harry for reassurance but he didn't seem to know how to react to her.

Not moving, as if afraid to get too close to her, and with a conflicted expression, Harry answered her.

"Yes."

Lily collapsed back onto the couch behind her and took a deep, steadying breath as she tried to sink into the velvety cushions. Everything she touched seemed so real all of a sudden but in sharp contrast it seemed unreal that there could be a battle raging somewhere below them, professors and dark wizards dueling in her beloved school.

_But this is war_, she thought and her skin crawled. She felt as though something large and hairy had jumped down her throat and was trying to devour her from the inside out.

Suddenly, her time travel situation didn't seem so dire anymore. Someone might be _dying _floors below as she sat there in Albus Dumbledore's office with a sixteen year old Harry Potter. Lily felt like crying but her eyes were dry, as was her throat.

"How are you here?" Harry whispered and Lily looked up at him, into his eyes and saw something there that had been absent before. It wasn't just the casual, uninterested glances she'd been receiving until now, there was doubt there, and curiosity.

"You believe me?" she asked.

Harry grimaced, his posture stiff as he remained unmoving in the darkening office. He glanced at the door behind him and Lily knew he wanted to go fight, to help his friends and then he glanced back at her, a girl he didn't know who wasn't in danger.

"No." he said, but it was unconvincing. "I don't know. Maybe. Dumbledore believes you."

"Well Dumbledore's right," Lily said reluctantly. "As much as I wish it wasn't true."

She wondered if he would run off to find his friends, to tell them about the Death Eaters. _Or do they already know?_

She wondered if he would tell them about her, if he would tell Ginny. With her red hair and brown eyes if was fairly obvious who her mother was. She suddenly felt very self-conscious with him staring at her. But Harry continued to stare as if he'd never seen anything like her before and Lily stared back with flushed cheeks and a pounding chest.

"And I don't know how I got… here," she said. Harry had made to take a step towards the door of the office and Lily found herself speaking, wanting him to stay. "Here being 1997 that is. I just woke up here, in the hospital wing."

Harry flustered a little, frustrated that she had his attention again. "You don't remember travelling back in time?" he asked, his disbelief not masked at all.

"No," Lily told him, lifting her chin into the air. Lily supposed he had a right to be skeptical, but she still took slight offense at it.

"I really shouldn't tell you anything anyway," Lily said. "It could screw the whole time line."

"More than you being here at all?" Harry started scathingly but stopped abruptly. Lily noticed he wasn't looking her in the eyes but rather his eyes were fixed on her hair. Lily realized she was twisting it in her hands again, a habit she'd inherited from her mother and dropped the handful of red hair immediately.

"Why risk it?" she asked as she deliberately placed her hands into her lap.

Harry considered this. "What's there to lose?" he countered.

"Only everything I know," Lily answered hotly. "My family. My parents, my brothers, my friends." She was becoming annoyed with Harry's intense curiosity.

"Brothers?" Harry asked, breathless and Lily froze. She wanted to snatch her words back out of the air but it was too late. "You have brothers?"

Lily nodded, knowing there was no point in denying anything. But she kept her mouth firmly shut in order not to give anything else away.

"What are their names?" Harry asked and his tone pulled at Lily's heart. It was as if Harry couldn't imagine anything so wonderful as having a family. His face was pleading and he seemed to have forgotten the commotion that had to be happening below.

"I shouldn't—" she started but cut herself off at the expression on Harry's face. She couldn't look away.

_What could it hurt now, _she wondered, _now that he already knows about me?_

"Well, James is the oldest," she told him glancing around the room uneasily. She felt she was doing something terribly wrong and didn't want to be found out. She was acutely aware of all portraits around them feigning sleep. "And then there's Al, and then me." She wasn't looking at Harry anymore. "Oh, and Teddy's practically family too."

Harry collapsed into one of the chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk, the one Lily had previously occupied. He seemed too stunned for words.

"I really shouldn't be telling you any of this!" Lily insisted in a high pitched voice.

Harry finally looked at her face and Lily could see that he was breathing heavily. She supposed it would be quite a lot to take in.

"What do you mean, practically family?" he asked. "Who's Teddy?"

"I just- he-" Lily struggled and shook her head frantically. "I can't tell you any more!"

She knew this was almost cruel, like dangling Harry's future just out of reach, just enough to see it but not enough to hold on to. Harry opened his mouth to protest but just then a faint scream wafted into the room from below and the two looked down at the source of the noise and then back at each other. Lily knew her face was white with renewed fear.

"I can't tell you more," she said again, quietly.

"I know," Harry said. He stared at her face for a moment and Lily had the impression that he was trying to memorize it. And then Harry stood abruptly and swept from the office like Dumbledore had moments before and Lily was left alone in the darkened office. She hesitated watching the spot Harry had occupied just a moment before.

Suddenly, with a flash of courage, Lily stood from the plush couch, her limbs awkward and uncooperative but her mind determined. She took a deep breath and rushed after Harry and into a danger she'd only ever heard about in stories, into a nightmare.

* * *

The memory seemed to have frozen for a second in shock but as James watched, Pansy pulled the dazed Terry over to shadowed corner of the room by a sleeve and pushed him under one of the desks. In his shocked state, Terry offered little resistance. Pansy then pointed her wand at him again and stunned him.

James stood, helpless, as the memory around him dissolved, Terry falling into black unconsciousness. James's mouth was slightly agape in shock as his mind tried to cope with all of this new information. Pansy Parkinson had entered the Department of Mysteries without any authorization, stolen a time turner, and obliviated an Unspeakable before stowing him away to be found, almost incoherent, a few days later. And all this just before Lily had mysteriously disappeared leaving nothing behind but shattered glass and sand that had once taken the form of a time turner.

As the blackness around him grew complete it was suddenly gone and James was once again bathed in blue light, Terry and Elaine beside him and Walter and Olsen Smith looking on eagerly. James lost his balance slightly as his surroundings shocked him and in front of him Terry jerked back into consciousness and stumbled as well. Walter stepped forward and caught Terry before he fell and Elaine grabbed James's arm, steadying him.

"Well?" asked Elaine eagerly, looking between James and Terry, both of whom were still recovering from the slight shock. "Did it work?"

James fell subject to the eager gazes of Elaine and Walter but one look at Terry's face and he knew something had gone wrong. Terry looked neither happy to have his memory back together, nor angry that he'd been obliviated by Pansy Parkinson. He didn't seem to realize anything had happened at all.

"Well, I saw everything," James began in answer to Elaine and Walter's stares. "Terry?"

Terry looked at the charms workers helplessly. "I'm supposed to remember now? I don't remember any more than I did before."

James watched the smile melt from Elaine's face. She stood, shoulders slumped, gazing at Terry almost pleadingly, silently begging him to remember.

"But you saw how Terry lost his memory?" Walter asked. "How did it happen?"

James looked around at them all as they waited for an answer.

"You were right," he told Terry, his voice as sympathetic as he could make it. "There was someone else in there with you. It was Pansy Parkinson, and she obliviated you."

There was a short, shocked silence after James had said this and then Elaine burst in, "_Parkinson_? That reporter woman from the Daily Prophet?"

"The very same," James said and rubbed his eyes. His body was at once exhausted and exhilarated by a fury coursing through him as he pictured Pansy slipping the time turner into her pocket.

"Anything else?" Olsen Smith asked, his eyes narrowed at James. "She was just there and obliviated Boot because she felt like it."

James didn't hesitate. "That's all I saw."

The two had a silent standoff, staring each other down until Walter spoke up. "Well," he said, addressing Terry, who turned to him with a glum smile. "I'm sorry we weren't able to get you your memories just yet. Rest assured that we will keep trying."

Glancing at Olsen Smith, who was now glaring at the three charms professionals as if he could banish them with his eyes, Elaine fidgeted and sidled away from Terry. "I suppose our appointment is over," she said, her voice high. "Thank you for your time."

And with that, Smith swept in front of them leading them out of the department. James looked back over his shoulder to see Terry still standing in the same spot rubbing at his temples and glancing suspiciously all around him.

_Terry Boot may not have his memories,_ he thought, _but I do_.

And he intended to use what he had learned to help Lily as soon as possible.

When Olsen left them in the atrium there were a few reporters there who flocked over at the sight of them emerging from the Department of Mysteries. Not nearly so many were present now as when Terry had resurfaced claiming memory loss, but still enough of them to be a definite annoyance. James stood back and let Walter and Elaine ward them off with vague comments or hand waves.

Leaning forward, James whispered vague to Elaine and made his way quickly to the lifts a few yards away. Leaving his coworkers to the mercy of the press, James entered a vacant lift and pounded on the button for the Auror division a few times as if it would make the trip faster.

The lift ground loudly as it moved and James tapped his foot anxiously on the floor. He seemed to be moving at a snail's pace. He pounded on the button again impatiently. When the doors finally opened again, James was out into the corridor before the cool female voice could announce his arrival. He made his way through the familiar maze of cubicles waving out of habit as a few Aurors called out to him in greeting. Very quickly, he reached his destination: the office door bearing the title **Harry Potter, Head of the Auror Division, Department of Magical Law Enforcement**_**.**_

Harry had looked up at the sound of the door opening and James saw a flash of irritation cross his face before recognition and worry overtook it.

"James, what…?" Harry half stood out of his seat as James rushed forward.

"Dad, Pansy Parkinson stole a time turner from the Department of Mysteries."

* * *

Harry's office wasn't small by any means. He had earned a large cushy office with a window or two, but with the number of people it now held, it felt as small and cramped as the cupboard under the stairs.

But for being filled with so many people, the office was deathly quiet as its occupants remained still and pondered the new information they'd just received. Harry himself leaned against the front of his desk, his arms crossed and his head tilted slightly to one side as he processed information. Ginny stood next to him, one of her hands resting on his arm and the other pulling nervously at her hair, a habit she'd never broken from their Hogwarts' days.

Ron and Hermione were on Harry's other side, Hermione leaning against Ron, who had his arms around his wife. James sat in one of the chairs facing Harry's desk, Albus in the other, and Teddy leaned against the door, his arms crossed like Harry.

Al had been a last minute addition to the group. Having been with Teddy when Harry had flooed his godson, Albus had insisted on coming and Harry hadn't argued.

"Well, we should have known Pansy Parkinson was up to something dangerous," Ron said into the tense quiet. "Now we know she was stealing time turners."

"But if she got what she wanted, why is she still sniffing around the ministry?" James asked. Harry had been wondering the same thing and couldn't pin his finger on it yet.

"She's been sniffing around the ministry?" Ron asked, his eyebrows raised. "You mean since this happened?"

James grimaced and ran a hand through is hair. "Believe me, she's been around all morning, especially in our department. She's been grilling us on our newest project- the one we were testing on Terry Boot."

And suddenly Harry had it. "She didn't want you to identify her," he said quietly, reveling in this new revelation. "She didn't want you to retrieve his memories."

"She must be covering up her tracks," Ginny put in.

"But you retrieved Terry Boot's memories. You just said you saw her!" Al said to James and sat up straighter in his chair. Harry could almost feel Al's impatience radiating through the room.

"James saw her," Al told the room at large as if they hadn't understood. "Why don't you bring her in, Dad?"

Harry opened his mouth to respond that he intended to but Hermione was shaking her head and got there first. "James, you said Terry still didn't remember anything incriminating, correct?" James nodded and Hermione continued. "Then all we have is your word, and while we all believe you, it's not enough to convict anyone. In any court, we have next to nothing."

"I can still bring her in for questioning," Harry said stubbornly. "And get _something_ out of her." He rubbed at his knuckles absently, eager to vent some of his prolonged frustration at the _temporary _loss of his daughter.

"We can't be sure this is even connected to Lily," Ginny said, though Harry could tell she didn't believe it. None of them did. It was too much of a coincidence that a time turner was stolen and then one showing up at Hogwarts so soon after and Harry didn't believe in coincidences of any kind.

"We can't prove it even if we prove she stole the time turner," Ginny continued. Her voice was bitter and Harry met her eyes, wanting her to know he felt the same way. She rested her head on his shoulder and Harry sighed.

"We have to assume that it has everything to do with Lily," Teddy spoke up quietly and all eyes turned to him. Harry watched his godson carefully, uncomfortable with Teddy's tone. His posture was stiff but his voice was steady. "We can't afford not to or something important could slip through our fingers."

Teddy stepped away from the wall and towards the other occupants of the room. He thoughtlessly brushed away strands of his hair, which Harry noticed had morphed for the first time in weeks and was a dull shade of red.

"If we can get Pansy to confess to being at Hogwarts with the time turner the night Lily disappeared than we may be able to solve everything."

Harry didn't like the gleam that had appeared in Teddy's eyes; he had seen it too many times before in criminals who reveled in illegal adventure. Ginny's grip on his arm tightened, making Harry uncross his arms and rest his hand on top of hers. He could feel Ginny's unease growing, matching his own.

"What are you talking about?" Al asked, looking at Teddy, unabashedly hopeful that someone finally had a plan.

"Teddy-" Harry tried to put in warningly, to stop this from continuing. He suspected he knew where this was going. But Teddy wasn't going to be deterred. He took another step forward, his full height daunting despite his skinny frame.

"If we know when and where it happened, we can go back and change it," he said, throwing caution to the wind, staring Harry right in the eyes and Harry stared right back. His voice was almost wild. "Lily will never even be gone."

Hermione gasped, stepping away from Ron. "Terrible things happen to wizards who meddle with time, Teddy!" she said. Harry had heard this before, knew she was right. "You don't know—"

"Terrible things have already happened!" Teddy cut her off loudly. And Harry watched the other occupants flinch at tone. "Lily's _gone_ and, let's face it, we haven't come up with any other options! It's this or nothing at all."

Harry felt the eyes of everyone else in the room shift in his direction. His face was as stoic as he could keep it. He had seen this coming but was unprepared for the reality of Teddy's words. He looked at James and Albus in front of him. He was struck that it wasn't right with just the two of them. His family was incomplete. He looked at Ginny who was looking back at him with a blazing look in her eyes and Harry knew that Teddy was right.

It was this or nothing.

* * *

**AN: Thanks to my beta, ellaminnowpea, who has been extremely busy but still managed to get back to me!**

**Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Please do let me know!**


	9. Chapter 9

****

Chapter Nine- War Time

* * *

Harry hated her.

He hadn't hated someone in a long time, not since Voldemort, and it felt as though his insides were rotting. But he couldn't help it. The woman sitting in front of him had taken his daughter away from him.

For a few minutes, Harry and Pansy Parkinson merely stared at each other, Harry's gaze cold and determined. Pansy looked entirely unconcerned with her current position, though Harry could tell it was taking some effort on her part. Her appearance was a bit tousled and Harry noted with some satisfaction that the Aurors who had brought her in had taken no extra caution.

The two of them were occupying one of the Interrogation rooms in the lower levels of the Ministry. Pansy was seated behind a coarse wooden table, her long fingernails tapping against the surface and Harry stood by the door, his arms crossed, one of his hands clenched tightly around a small glass vial.

As Harry stared at the woman seated in front of him he only saw her seventeen-year-old self screaming to the Great Hall to hand him over to Voldemort and save themselves. He reflected that she hadn't given it a second thought, but would have thrown him to his certain death to save her own life. She may have done the same to Lily. Lily could be anywhere, in danger, hurting, or worse.

And it was this Pansy Parkinson's fault.

Harry was determined to find out just how exactly this was the case, no matter the means. He clenched the vial more tightly in his fist.

What he _did_ know was that it had been a Monday night, after curfew, in the beginning of April when Lily Patrice Potter had gone missing from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She had left behind a shattered time turner and an old bit of parchment.

Lily had been responsible for the presence of the cunningly disguised Marauders Map, Pansy Parkinson for the time turner, which she had stolen from the Ministry of Magic a few days before.

Harry Potter knew all of this, but had yet to prove it. Harry stood in the barren interior of an interrogation room, silent, bracing himself. His heartbeat was quick but steady, fueled by anger more than nerves.

Approaching the table with a slow, determined step, Harry set the vial down on the wood, his eyes never leaving Pansy's face. He saw her thin eyebrows rise in surprise. Her fingers stilled their tapping and she sat up straighter in the stiff wooden chair she'd been provided.

"Veritaserum," she observed quietly.

Harry nodded.

"You administer that serum and you'll lose your job, Potter," she sneered at Harry. He said nothing in return, exerting all his energy into keeping his anger at bay.

"It's _illegal_," Parkinson continued as though she were speaking to an infant. "You wouldn't want to do something, _illegal_, would you? Your golden reputation, your good name, all out the window the moment that liquid drips down my throat."

She leaned back in her chair with a satisfied air, as though she'd beaten him at something and Harry felt his stomach turn unpleasantly.

"You think I care about my good name more than my daughter?" Harry asked quietly, his voice barely level despite his efforts. He shook his head.

When Harry made no move toward the vial Pansy raised her chin triumphantly but her expression froze when Harry snatched the veritaserum off the table and began to make his way toward her.

Parkinson swallowed visibly, her composure falling.

"It's your future," she said with a light scoff, but her voice wavered, ruining the effect.

"No," Harry said. "It's Lily's."

* * *

Lily hadn't expected the _noise_.

Whenever she had pictured battle from the stories her parents told about the war or from the History of Magic lectures she actually listened to, Lily thought of the flashes of spells flying in every direction, a dizzying speed of events, and a perpetual adrenaline rush. All of these _were _present at the moment, but she _hadn't_ expected the noise.

And now, as she crouched behind a large stone statue of a wizard with an eagle perched on his shoulder, her wand clutched tightly in her sweaty hand, a cacophony flew at her from every side. Shouts of curses, screams to triumph or pain, the shatter of misplaced spell fire on the stone walls of the castle all echoed strangely around her, filling her head to the point where Lily thought she'd never hear anything else again.

She had rushed after Harry from the safety of Dumbledore's office into uncertain peril, unprepared for what she would meet. She had watched as Harry rushed in without pause to fight alongside his professors against terrifying figures robed all in black and masked. It was the first time Lily had ever seen a Death Eater.

Lily leaned her weight against the wall beside her as her heart pounded desperately and her head spun from the clamor. Her forehead was sweaty and her hair tousled and strung out in every direction. As she sat trying to steady her nerves, a jet of red light shot past her, skimming the shelter of the statue and causing chunks of stone to fly off in every direction. Lily threw her arms up to cover her face and curled more tightly into herself.

_Some Gryffindor you are_, she thought acidly but couldn't bring herself to move. Her legs weren't working. Nothing was.

However she was left with little choice but to move when a masked face appeared around the statue, its hollow, masked eyes consuming her. Lily screamed and threw her wand up but the Death Eater was faster. Before Lily knew what was happening she was flying away from her hiding place and into the far wall. Pain rippled through her side and she screamed again.

From the floor where she fell Lily raised her wand blindly and shouted the first spell that came to mind.

"_Diffindo!"_

She heard a yell and when her eyes focused again she saw her attacker clutching his wand arm in pain, blood draining from a large slice down the middle. Lily staggered to her feet and ran past the man, hoping to get far enough away from any spells he might cast with an injured arm but a moment later a trip jinx found her and she fell to the floor hard. The fall knocked the wind out of her and for a moment she couldn't move, couldn't make a sound.

Coughing, Lily pushed herself half up, her arms shaking and then a hand gripped her hair and hauled her roughly to her feet. She struggled and stumbled and tried to call for help but thought her voice was drowned out trying to compete with the dissonance that surrounded her.

"_Stup—"_ she began but a large hand gripped her wrist and the curse died in her throat as she whimpered in pain. The Death Eater's grip was strong and Lily could feel her bones protesting the pressure he exerted on them. Before she could do anything a flash of red consumed Lily's vision and then her attacker was on the ground, unconscious.

Looking desperately in every direction, Lily noted with a rush of relief that members of the famed Order of the Phoenix had arrived. There were Teddy's parents- Lily recognized them from pictures- and a tall, bald black man Lily knew to be Kingsley Shacklebolt. There was at least one member of her family there as well; it had been her Uncle Bill that had saved her. Lily marveled at his young, whole face, vacant of scars.

Before she could rush over to him he was already fighting another Death Eater, this one not masked but when she saw his face Lily wished he had been. He was filthy and ragged, his hair long and matted, his teeth bared like an animal and Lily felt sick as she noticed blood dripping from his mouth.

Lily watched in horror as the feral man got the better of Bill and flew at him, his yellow and pointed fingernails slashing into Bill's flesh as his teeth ripped at his face. Bill screamed and so did Lily; she screamed louder than she had in her entire life and wished for nothing else than for this to stop.

Her wand arm flew up and she shouted, "_STUPEFY!_"

The power of the spell caused Bill's attacker to be thrown from his prey and he landed across the hall in a heap. Bill wasn't moving.

_So much blood_, Lily couldn't help thinking.

As she stared at Bill's still form, a jet of red light missed her by inches and Lily was jolted into action. She gripped her wand and tried to run in any direction but duelers blocked her path as they darted this way and that. Lily saw that some students had come to fight. Ron, Hermione, and Neville were on the far side of where Bill lay and Ginny was to Lily's right fighting alongside Tonks.

Lily made it a few steps when she fell to the ground as a spell sliced her side. She had been stationary for too long, an easy target. Her hands went to her side and she felt blood there and gasped. It was shallow, but painful. Twisting to find her attacker, Lily saw another masked Death Eater, indistinguishable from his allies, striding towards her with his wand trained on her. Lily couldn't see through the mask but she had the distinct impression that he was smiling. She gripped her own wand, her own blood smearing on the wood and tried in vain to utter a curse but her side was _so_ painful.

Suddenly, a figure darted forward and blocked Lily's view of the approaching Death Eater. He fired off a curse and its target fell. Her rescuer then rushed towards her, his hands gripping her arm and pulling her to her feet. She was unsteady but the constant flow of adrenaline kept her upright.

"You okay?" Harry asked frantically and Lily stood in shock. _Harry_ had saved her.

She was too focused on the concern in Harry's eyes to respond with words so she nodded. She hadn't seen that look in so long and it nearly put her on the floor again. Satisfied with her nod, Harry turned and continued firing off curses faster than Lily had ever seen. He didn't leave her side.

Emboldened by Harry's presence, Lily began firing off curses of her own despite the throbbing pain her side.

"_Stupefy!"_

"_Reducto!"_

"_Incendio!"_

To Lily's left a Death Eater's robes burst into brilliant flames from Harry's spell and she squinted reflexively at the sudden brightness. When the panicked man had extinguished the flames that were rapidly devouring his robes the hall seemed dim in comparison. That changed quickly however when a sickly green illuminated them from the window.

Something rippled through the crowd of people in the hall as they were bathed in the green light. There was a short hush, instantaneous, but a moment later, a new commotion broke out. This was not the intensity of battle that had been palpable before, this was shock, panic.

"The Dark Mark!" someone was shouting. "It's the Dark Mark!"

* * *

"Do you know who I am?"

"Harry Potter," came the dull response.

"And your name?"

"Pansy Parkinson."

Harry was now sitting, his arms crossed on chest, the wooden table still separating him from Parkinson. She no longer wore the smug expression she'd had on earlier, but rather a glazed look, her eyes glassy and unfocused. Her posture was suffering as well, she was slumped into her chair, her head tilted to one side. Harry was never comfortable seeing people in this helpless condition but he'd had no choice.

Pansy hadn't had a chance to struggle. Harry had immobilized her before attempting to give her the veritaserum, certain that she would resist. He had done the same with other prisoners in the past, the only difference being that they were under trial and it had been legal. He felt a small tinge of guilt in his gut but thinking of Lily extinguished this.

And now that Pansy was in no position to retaliate, he could finally find out what had happened to Lily. A small part of Harry still nagged at him that what he was doing was illegal but the thought of seeing Lily's face again drove this feeling to a deep, dark part of Harry's brain and buried it there.

"Did you ever enter the Department of Mysteries without authorization?"

His questions would have to build up to the incident. He couldn't just jump in demanding to know what had happened to his daughter. Too much of a shock or too much confusion and the veritaserum-infected mind would shut down.

"Yes," came Pansy's dull reply, and Harry shivered at the sound of her voice. It was as if the bottle on the table in front of him held a dementor, ready to steal the soul of any who dared to drink it, but as uncomfortable as he was with this notion, he continued with the interrogation for Lily's sake.

"What day?"

"April 7, 2023."

"Did you steal a time turner while you were there?"

"Yes."

"For what purpose?"

There was a pause and Harry waited with bated breath.

"To travel back in time," was Pansy's reply.

Harry knew that he couldn't venture anywhere too complicated or he would be out of answers from Pansy and yet he couldn't afford to waste time with questions he already knew the answer to.

"How far back were you intending to go?"

"Twenty four years."

_Twenty-four years_, Harry thought. He quickly did the math and approximated it to what would have been Pansy's seventh year at Hogwarts, just before Voldemort fell. As another piece fell into place, Harry became more eager to know how Lily fitted into this mess Parkinson had caused.

"Have you been to Hogwarts in the last few weeks?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Pansy replied without hesitation.

"Were you there with a time turner?" Harry asked quickly. A brief second of silence stretched out between them.

"Yes."

Harry gripped his arms tighter together, trying to contain his anger until he had more answers. "Why Hogwarts?" he bit out desperately.

"Because it is much easier to get into the school now."

As opposed to twenty four years ago when Voldemort was still at large.

"Did you intend to see Lily?"

Another pause, Pansy's foggy brain processing. He should have said her full name.

"No."

"And why did you want to go back to Hogwarts twenty four years ago?" Harry asked his final question.

"To make sure you died." Parkinson responded, her voice still lacking any inflection but her words chilling all the same.

Harry shuddered, disgusted with the woman who sat in front of him. He didn't feel any better now that he had more answers. Lily's disappearance had been an _accident_ from what this sounded like. Pansy hadn't intended to run into anyone and Lily just happened to be out after curfew.

Running his hands through his scruffy hair Harry sighed. _An accident_.

He stood and left Pansy Parkinson behind in the stark interrogation room, the large, thick wooden door closing with a satisfying slam behind him. He would have until the side effects had worn off and then it was only a matter of time before his position in the Ministry was in jeopardy.

Harry hurried to the atrium, his footsteps pounding on the stone floors, echoing around him. He had very little time left to get his hands on a time turner.

* * *

The Dark Mark meant Voldemort and it meant death.

As Lily stared out the window were she could just see the head of a glowing green snake, a dark form fell from the sky, plummeting quickly, but gracefully, to the ground. It was only visible for a second, but as Lily watched, her mouth open in shock, her wand limp at her side, she registered that the form had been a body. And that if they hadn't been dead when they fell, they surely would be when the collided with the ground below.

Harry was still beside her, dueling with Death Eaters, but Lily rushed from his side to the window, dodging curses that were flying from the cloaked, masked wizards with renewed vigor. The Dark Mark seemed to have galvanized them and they were fighting with a new confidence. As Lily ran, ducking and twisting awkwardly, her side burning, she passed a staircase that led to the astronomy tower. She had been up there a few hours earlier, skipping Potions and now Death Eaters were pouring from that staircase, surrounding Lily. But they were not firing off curses or even paying her much notice.

One Death Eater, burlier than the others, laughed harshly and shouted, "_Albus Dumbledore is_ _DEAD!_"

Lily fiercely pushed her way through two of the large black forms and sprinted the rest of the way to the window. She tried to block out the scream of triumph that poured from the Death Eaters but it echoed in the stone hall, heavy, thick, and terrible.

When Lily finally reached her destination she leaned forward out the large window to gaze at the darkened ground below. Just visible was a dark, lumpy form, and a white beard that was shining dimly in the light from the rising moon.

Lily's head spun and she felt suddenly dizzy from the height. She pulled away from the window, and her legs collapsed beneath her. Her eyes stared ahead of her where the battle was still raging but all she saw was Dumbledore's limp body falling from the astronomy tower above.

Suddenly, a voice caught her attention.

"_IT'S OVER!_" Snape yelled as he ran away from the battle and down the hall. Death Eaters began throwing their final curses before following. Lily knew from her father's stories that Severus Snape had just murdered Albus Dumbledore.

But had it really happened like this?

_This can't be right_, Lily thought. Lily had always pictured Albus Dumbledore's death to be dignified, planned and executed to his will, but she could see nothing orderly about any of this. She was suddenly furious with Snape, the coward, throwing Dumbledore from the astronomy tower and fleeing.

_Albus Severus Potter,_ Lily thought angrily. _Two of the bravest men I ever knew_, her father would say but Lily didn't see any bravery in the fleeing professor.

As Lily thought about her father she saw Harry sprinting after Snape, faster than any of the masked figures, and Lily tried to stand, to run after them, but gave it up when pain coursed through her side and she screamed, "WAIT! _WAIT!_" not wanting Harry to leave. But a second later Snape and Harry were gone, the Death Eaters following in their wake.

As Lily leaned against the wall beneath the window for support, the hall quieted as only students and Order members remained. Lily felt tears prickling at her eyes and she pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them close to her. She had never been so terrified in her entire life. The adrenaline that had been coursing through her veins a moment before was rapidly leaving her and her side where she'd been hit was still bleeding and more painful than ever. Her head felt too light.

She leaned her head forward onto her knees and squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking out of them.

Most of the voices in the hall were quiet, concerned, but an anguished cry broke through these and Lily looked up in alarm, her hand gripping her wand, her vision blurred by tears. When her vision cleared, however, she saw that there was no one attacking, only Ginny crying out as she saw her fallen brother. Bill was still where he'd fallen from the attack Lily had witnessed. Her heart sped up rapidly, her chest aching from the effort of it.

_He can't be dead_, she thought. _I know him, he can't be dead._ She thought about Fleur and their children.

"He's still alive, Ginny. We need to get him to the hospital wing," Ron said and relief flooded her. She couldn't stand, couldn't rush over to help. Ron and Ginny watched anxiously as Professor Sprout hurried over and levitated Bill. Lily watched as they headed to the hospital wing an unconscious Bill leading the group. Looking around she saw that most others had left as well, more wounded being taken to see the ever-capable Madam Pomfrey.

Professor McGonagall was heading briskly in Lily's direction. She stared up as her headmistress approached, tears still leaking from her eyes. She had never seen Minerva McGonagall so disheveled before. Her hair tousled out of its neat bun, scratches on her face. When McGonagall reached her she looked down at Lily with obvious concern and Lily looked back. She had always known Headmistress McGonagall to be very stoic in nature and was a little surprised by the soft expression she now saw on the professor's face.

"I think you had better head to the hospital wing as well, Ms. Potter," she said quietly and Lily nodded silently. She stood awkwardly, her limbs shaking and protesting, one hand on her throbbing side. McGonagall waited patiently and when Lily had made it to her feet, the two of them left for the hospital wing in the wake of Lily's future family.

* * *

The walk to the hospital wing was long and silent and when the pair of professor and student reached the tall wooden doors they entered to find the room well occupied but somber.

At the far end of the ward were assorted members of the Weasley family, Teddy's parents, Harry, who had been retrieved from the grounds by Ginny, the two holding hands tightly, Hermione, and Madame Pomfrey. They surrounded a bed. Lily could barely see Bill's mangled and bloody face between the crowding bodies.

McGonagall left Lily on one of the vacant beds and turned to leave the ward again. Lily hoped something was being done about Dumbledore's body. They shouldn't leave it there for very long. To her right Lily listened to speculations about werewolf tendencies and the chances that Bill might have any. He would definitely have scars, just the way Lily remembered him. He had always refused to tell them the story of how he'd become so scarred and now Lily understood why. She couldn't keep the scene from replaying over and over again in her head, just as she couldn't stop the vision of Dumbledore's graceful body falling through the night sky.

When Professor McGonagall returned it was with Bill's parents and Fleur in her wake. Lily watched as her grandma and grandpa rushed over to their son and Fleur did the same. McGonagall approached the group more slowly, speaking directly to Harry when she arrived.

"Harry, what happened? According to Hagrid you were saying Professor Snape was involved somehow with Professor Dumbledore—"

"Snape killed Dumbledore," Lily whispered, wondering if it was supposed to happen this way. She glanced over to find all eyes on her and she sucked in her breath as if to take the words back. Their disbelief was evident in their expressions. Thankfully, McGonagall's fierce gaze turned back to Harry.

"It's true," Harry said bitterly. "He admitted to it when I ran after him."

"Snape," McGonagall repeated, her hand on her chest, "We all wondered… but he trusted… always… _Snape_… I can't believe it…."

"Snape was a highly accomplished Occlumens," said Lupin, his voice harsh. And although it was the first time Lily had heard him speak, she knew instantly that the tone did not suit him. "We always knew that."

The discussion continued but Lily fell too deeply into her own thoughts to contribute. She could find absolutely no redeeming qualities in the man of Severus Snape but her father had, at some point, found something there worth remembering. So assuming Snape was on their side after all, why was this happening this way?

"I'd love to know what Snape told Dumbledore to convince him," Tonks was saying and Lily's head lifted slightly as she listened in.

"I know," Harry answered. "Snape passed Voldemort the information that made Voldemort hunt down my mum and dad. Then Snape told Dumbledore he hadn't realized what the was doing, he was really sorry he'd done it, sorry that they were dead."

Lily could hear Harry's distressed voice echoing in her head. _"AND YOU LET HIM TEACH HERE AND HE TOLD VOLDEMORT TO GO AFTER MY MUM AND DAD!"_ She flinched as though she were actually hearing it again.

"And Dumbledore believed that?" Lupin asked as though this was ridiculous. "Dumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape _hated_ James…."

"And he didn't think my mother was worth a damn either," Harry put in, "because she was Muggle-born…. 'Mudblood,' he called her…."

But that wasn't right, was it? Snape's anguished face as he stood in Dumbledore's office swam before Lily's eyes. _Lily Evans is _dead_, Albus._ There had been pain there, deep pain that had festered in Snape for years.

No, Snape had cared about Harry's mother a great deal. And no one knew that.

As Lily sat there Madam Pomfrey bustled over to her and began inspecting the wound at her side without a word. Lily moved her arm out of the matron's way and tried to pull her shirt away from the cut but the blood had stitched it to her side and when she tugged a stinging pain overtook her torso.

"Just sit still now," Madam Pomfrey reprimanded her and Lily stopped fidgeting. A large hole was cut into her shirt from Madam Pomfrey's wand and a moment later, with some complicated wand movement and muttered spell work, her wound stitched up, the blood clearing away.

"You'll have a mark for a while, dear," Madam Pomfrey told her frankly and Lily nodded gratefully. The pain was almost entirely gone.

When Lily turned again to the group at the end of the ward they were talking quietly, Bill sleeping lightly in their midst. Lily was sorely tempted to lay her head down on the soft white pillow and drift off to sleep. Her eyelids were heavy and her body tired and there was something comforting about their presence, something that felt like home. But as she was nodding off a distressed voice reached her ears from the end of the ward and her eyes opened again to see what had caused the disturbance.

"You see!" Tonks was saying to Lupin. "She still wants to marry him, even though he's been bitten! She doesn't care!"

"It's different," Lupin muttered. "Bill won't be a full werewolf. The cases are completely—"

"But I don't care either, I don't care!" Tonks shook Lupin's robes forcefully. "I've told you a million times."

Lupin looked very uncomfortable to be having this conversation in the presence of so many people. Lily watched, curious to know more about Teddy's parents but distressed that they were arguing.

"And I've told you a million times," said Lupin, his gaze down at his shoes, "that I am too old for you, too poor… too dangerous…."

Tonks was looking more upset with every word from the man in front of her and her expression was almost more upsetting to Lily than their words. All the pictures Lily had seen had shown a bright, happy Tonks with hair every color of the rainbow, just like Teddy. And Lupin had looked easily just as happy, his arm around his wife, a smile on his face to make him ten years younger than he looked now.

Lily moved slowly from her bed to one that was closer.

"He does love you," she whispered to Tonks and the pair turned to look at her. Lily turned to Lupin. "I know you do," she said quietly.

They just stared at her, along with all the other occupants of the room. The room was silent with anticipation.

"You love each other," she told them frankly. "Enough to get married. Enough to have… children."

Lily was trying to speak as though these were hypothetical situations, marriage and a son and there was no reason for Lupin or Tonks to take her literally. But Lily felt other eyes on her and turned to see Harry staring at her carefully. She only wanted to help.

"And how would you know this?" Lupin asked her. Lily flinched a little, knowing from his tone that he was upset with her.

"I—" she faltered, not sure how to continue. Lily looked to Harry again who was still staring back at her.

"_What's there to lose?"_

"_Only everything I know!"_

Albus Dumbledore was dead and not only had he been one of the most amazing wizards of all time, he had also been her one real hope of returning to her own time. Did she really have anything to lose any more?

"I know," she began again, more confidently this time, "because I know your son. In a year, you'll be married, and in another you'll be parents. I know because Teddy Lupin is like my brother, because I grew up with him around, because I'll be born eleven years from now, in 2008."

* * *

**Chapter Nine! Only a few more chapters to go now.**

**Did you like it? Let me know!**

**Many thanks to my beta, ellaminnowpea. And, Ellaminnowpea is in fact registered with 's new betareaders listing.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten- To Meddle With Time**

For the second time in his life Harry Potter was going to break into the Department of Mysteries.

Teddy's words were ringing in Harry's ears as if Teddy himself was standing next to him, saying them aloud. _We can go back and change it. Lily will never even be gone. It's this or nothing at all_. The Department of Mysteries was the only place he knew he could get his hands on a time turner and because a time turner was what he needed to save Lily, that was where he was going to go. As he stepped away from Pansy Parkinson and towards the door of the interrogation room there was only one destination in his head. He stepped out of the room, paused, and braced himself by taking one long, deep breath.

_I've already broken the law once today,_ he thought, _and I've already lost myself my job._ All that was left to lose was Lily and _that_ wasn't happening.

Closing the heavy door behind him with a bang, Harry turned on his heel and jogged to the end of the vacant corridor, adrenaline beginning to build up in his veins. His attention was focused and his movements were swift. He peered around the corner to the left and right to make sure the way was clear and then took a left to find the stairs leading to the level below. Interrogation wasn't far from the Department of Mysteries, which was a blessing to Harry, as he had no time to spare.

As Harry reached the stairs at the end of the corridor, a voice sounded from the far end of the hall that halted him in his tracks.

"Dad!"

Harry's heart sped up instinctively at the shout and he turned but upon seeing James, and not someone with a wand trained on him, he let out a frustrated sigh of relief. The hand that had jumped towards his own wand relaxed.

"Dad, what are you doing?" James jogged the rest of the way until he reached Harry and stood with a quizzical expression on his face. "Aren't you interrogating Parkinson?"

"James, you can't be here," Harry said as calmly as he could. He ran a hand through his scruffy hair worriedly. "What are you doing down here?"

"Looking for you," James answered, his eyebrows rising in confusion. "And so are a bunch of Aurors." Harry's eyebrows rose in alarm.

"_Already?_" Harry coughed out before logical thinking caught up with him. He had _just _left Parkinson so there was no way they could know he'd illegally administered veritaserum. And just because he was _about_ to break into a restricted department, he technically _hadn't _yet.

James shot him a suspicious look. "They said there was some veritaserum missing without a log of it. I figured you forgot when you took it to interrogate Parkinson. That's why I came to find you. Are you _done_ with the interrogation? What did you find out? Everyone's dying to know, especially Al. I think he's about to--"

"James, I don't have _time_—" Harry started, eager for James to leave. He couldn't have his son getting into this sort of trouble with him. But James had stiffened, his gaze focused on the stairwell behind Harry. His eyes narrowed.

"Dad, _why_ are you going down into the Department of Mysteries," James asked slowly, not bothering to hide his growing suspicion. "What happened with Parkinson?"

Harry remained silent, weighing his options.

"There's only one Department down that stairwell," James continued, his tone taking on an accusatory tone. "Dad, _what's happened_?"

As Harry struggled to find an excuse another figure appeared at the end of the corridor and Harry's hand jumped to his wand again. He pulled James behind him and stepped forward. His stomach turned to lead as he recognized the blond head of Pansy Parkinson staring back at him in surprise.

For a moment, all three of them stood frozen and then, with a smile that gave Harry chills Pansy turned on her heal and ran to the end of the corridor and out of sight. Harry had no doubt she was headed to tell his Aurors exactly what _had_ happened to that veritaserum.

"James," Harry said urgently, turning and resting his hands on his son's shoulders. James was still staring after Parkinson, surprise evident in his face. "_James_, I need to get into the Hall of Time. You were just there, can you lead the way?"

This grabbed his son's attention instantly. James raised his eyebrows and he opened his mouth as if to speak but paused.

"I—Dad, the entire department is a _maze_. Not to mention the fact that they _blindfolded_ us when we came down."

Harry closed his eyes and ran his hands through his disheveled hair. _Aurors behind and a maze ahead_, Harry thought. Harry needed a time turner, there was no negotiating that, but even if they got in, there was no guarantee of getting out again safely. _Well, there's no guarantee that _I'll_ get out safely but James could._

Harry looked at his son and felt his time slipping away. "James, I need you to do this."

"I don't know the way," James said again, looking almost desperately over his shoulder to the stairway behind him.

"Well, this'll be something of an adventure then, won't it?" Harry said grimly. James swallowed visibly and then looked back at Harry and nodded.

* * *

Harry peered cautiously around the corner at the door leading into directly into the Department of Mysteries, his wand aimed steadily at the taller of two security guards blocking their way. They were chatting idly, their stances relaxed, their guards down. James was behind him, wand also in hand and biting his lip nervously.

"_Stupefy_" Harry whispered and a jet of red shot straight to its target. The security guard crumpled instantly where he stood, clearly unconscious as a result of the spell. His partner stood rigidly still for a split second, shock on his face, before he raised his wand. Harry waited, watching as the guard's eyes darted around frantically in search of an attack coming. But before the guard could do anything another jet of red shot around the corner and he fell in a heap, his wand clattering on the stone floor.

Harry turned to see James still holding his wand after having stunned the second guard. His son's face was white but his arm was steady. Harry held back a satisfied smirk.

"Okay, let's go," Harry said and he ran towards the now unguarded door. He worked quickly at unlocking the door. A simple _alohamora_ and it slid inward, its sleek, dark wood silent as it moved.

Harry instantly recognized the room they entered next. It was circular, the walls lined with large wooden doors and lit with a blue glow. When Harry and James entered the door behind them closed with a snap and Harry braced himself for what was coming. The walls around the two of them spun at a rapid pace, the doors blurring until there was only a streak of brown in Harry's vision. He kept his wand ready, held tightly in his fist. Beside him, James too was holding his wand but his eyes were closed and his jaw clenched and he looked as though he might be sick.

Eventually, the spinning stopped and Harry and James were faced with numerous, identical doors.

"Which one?" James asked quietly, his eyes now open wide.

Harry let out a harsh laugh. "Only one way to find out," he said, and opened one to his right at random. Harry looked in to find himself standing on the edge of the universe. Before him stretched out a scene of stars and planets that momentarily stunned him. Behind him, James let out a low whistle.

"They don't joke about the mystery part, do they?" James asked and Harry shook his head mutely.

The two stood motionless for a moment, gaping at the magnificent scene before them as a comet streaked past behind what Harry assumed was Saturn. The seconds ticked by before Harry suddenly recalled the reason for their visit.

"Hold the door," he said urgently to James and walked back into the circular room. He muttered a quick spell to turn the door a brilliant shade of blue before nodding to his son who released his hold and stepped away. As soon as the blue door clicked back into place the spinning began again, the brown smear now dotted with blue.

The next door they tried led to the chamber containing a tank of brains in a room lined with doors and desks. Harry pulled James, who was looking oddly dazed, away quickly.

"But look at the brains, Dad," James protested.

"Trust me," he murmured, "you don't want to touch those."

James seemed to start at the sound of Harry's voice and the two backed away from the door. Harry colored it orange before they tried again.

The third door proved to be the correct one.

"This is it," James whispered and Harry nodded, recognizing the room before him. It was, just as he remembered, filled to the brim with all manners of strange objects. As the two Potters made their way cautiously into the room Harry recognized very few but had no interest in any of them.

"Do you know which way the time turners are?" Harry asked, looking around, almost expecting a sign pointing in the right direction.

James considered. "This way," he said hesitantly and pointed off to the right.

The walk was short and a moment later they reached a set of towering shelves covered in time turners. Harry stared up at them, his heart beating in his chest, the prospect of seeing Lily again fueling his brain.

"Dad?" James asked, worry in his tone. Harry ignored him but reached out a hand and grasped a time turner. "_Dad_."

Harry turned towards his son, trying to keep his breathing steady and his expression blank.

"Dad, what are we doing here? Why are you," he visibly struggled to find words for the sight of the time turner in Harry's hands. His arms flew up in frustration. "Why are you _stealing_ from the Department of Mysteries?"

…go back and change it. Lily will never even be gone.

Harry clenched the time turner in one hand and ran his other through his hair. He turned his eyes on James and said, "You heard Teddy. And he was right."

"Dad?"

Harry sighed, "He was right. The only way to get Lily back is to stop her from leaving at all."

"So, what?" There was a slight scoff to James's tone. "You're going to go back to- to _weeks_ ago when Lily disappeared and change the whole time line? You heard Aunt Hermione, terrible things happen to wizards who meddle with—"

"I _know_!" Harry cut James off loudly. "But I don't have any other choice! These only take you one way!" He shook the time turner at James, who flinched as the sand tumbled dangerously in it's glass casing. "If a time turner took Lily wherever she went she _can't come back_. And I won't accept that! I'd do anything to change it!"

A short silence followed Harry's outburst and the two Potters stood, Harry breathing heavily and James looking desperate and unhappy.

"But, Dad," James started quietly. "If you go back and stop Lily leaving, then there'd be no reason for you to have gone back at all and so… what'll happen to you?"

Harry sighed.

"I don't know," he answered truthfully. "I don't know what happens when you _change _something. But it doesn't matter," he continued and his voice gathered strength again. "It doesn't matter as long as we get Lily _back_." With that, Harry turned away from his son, ready to leave. But as Harry glanced ahead his heart sank. At the other end of the shelves stood two wizards clothed in Auror robes.

"Harry Potter," one of Aurors called loudly. Harry recognized the voice of Anthony Jordon, one of the recently graduated trainees. "You're under arrest for the illegal use of veritaserum in questioning a suspect, unprovoked stunning, and breaking and entering into the Department of Mysteries. Lay your wand on the ground and step forward slowly."

* * *

"…_because I'll be born eleven years from now, in 2008."_

Lily's words met a short, heavy silence in which they seemed to hang like a shameful secret. She felt her cheeks warm up but refused to lower her eyes lest she look even slightly guilty or untruthful. It had helped her out of trouble before with a number of professors. With an awkward sort of shift, Lily repositioned her weight on the hospital bed, which suddenly felt hard and uncomfortable.

The eyes of her grandparents, of Uncle Ron and her mother, of Tonks, of Aunt Fleur were all shocked and reproachful. Lupin's gaze was harsh and Lily looked away from him quickly. Her father's face was stoic as he stared at her and Lily felt very wrong footed.

Lily held in a strangled sigh, wishing _someone _would say _something_ and not knowing whether or not she should say something else. She had told them she was from the future and all they could do was sit and _stare _at her.

After what seemed an eternity to Lily a skeptical, humorless laugh reached her ears and she turned her gaze to Ginny, who had her arms crossed and was rolling her eyes. "Right," she said sarcastically. "You haven't been born yet."

Lily hesitated. "I… well—"

"_Patrice_, may I speak with you," McGonagall cut in briskly. Lily turned to her but didn't say anything. The professor took a few long strides to where Lily sat and laid a firm hand on her shoulder. "_Now_."

"What? _No, _I just—"

Lily stopped and blinked up at Professor McGonagall's fierce, hawk-like stare. She nodded, stood, and followed McGonagall away from the shocked crowd behind her.

"Headmistress—"

"Ms. Potter, this is not the _time_," Professor McGonagall told her in a whisper. Her voice was not full of the stern tones Lily was used to and it unnerved Lily even more than she had been before. "After all that's happened tonight, I don't think it wise to do this."

"And why not?" Lily protested. "After all that's happened tonight, I'm not sure it'll make much difference anyway."

"To meddle with time is not to be taken lightly, Potter!"

"Meddling with time!" exclaimed Lily heatedly, not bothering to keep her voice down. "Do you have any better suggestions? Or would you like a few more weeks of pretending it didn't happen and hoping I'll just slip tidily back into my own time? I have to do _something_."

Lily stepped away from McGonagall's reach and strode back to the startled assembly at the other end of the ward. She felt terrible and restless at once and was in no mood to be reprimanded. She didn't want to see her grandparent's disapproving looks or Aunt Hermione's knowing expression, or Lupin's bitter stare. She didn't want to be here at all, but so long as she was stuck in 1997, Lily was done with pretending.

"I'm not lying," she protested before they could speak, her voice fueled by a growing frustration. "I really have traveled back in time." She turned an anxious gaze to McGonagall, who had followed her back with narrowed eyes. Professor McGonagall's cheeks paled and her lips thinned as she stared at Lily.

No one spoke for a moment and it seemed to Lily as though everyone was waiting for something, some proof or explanation. She turned back to McGonagall who, though she may have been upset with Lily's actions, at least believed her.

"Please, Professor." Lily made her best effort to sound respectful.

"Albus believed her," McGonagall said firmly, her head held high.

There was short, confused pause before Harry cut in, "He also believed _Snape_."

"Dumbledore had no reason to lie to you!" Lily protested fiercely. "And neither do I!"

"Everything you've told us since you've been here has been a lie!" Harry shot back. "You're not McGonagall's _niece_, you're not a student here, and you're not my _daughter_ from the future!"

There were several gasps and exclamations at the last statement but Lily ignored them. Her eyes filled with angry tears and her hands clenched into fists. Dumbledore hadn't been this hard to convince, nor this frustrating. Her heart twinged a little at thinking of their first meeting, when she'd just arrived in 1997 and he had _helped _her. He certainly hadn't yelled at her. They had simply talked and come to the only logical conclusion, the truth.

And then Lily remembered, she had asked Dumbledore something only he would have known. With sudden inspiration, she strode towards Harry and looked defiantly up at him.

"I could tell you stories," she said heatedly, "stories you told _me_ when I was little. I always _loved _the one about the three-headed dog and the giant chess set. But Al and James always liked the one with the dragon and the golden egg."

Harry's expression faltered at the mention of her brothers but Lily ignored it.

"Or, better yet, why don't you check your _map_? You know, the one that _never lies_," she told him with a significant look. Harry didn't say anything, merely blinked in surprise. "Would you believe me then?" she asked, more quietly than before. Harry opened his mouth as if to respond but then shut it again and said nothing. Lily turned away from him and stepped over to Lupin instead.

His face had paled and he looked frailer than he had all evening.

"You know what map it is," Lily told him and his cheeks flushed. "You helped make it after all. That's why _Teddy_ got it first. He's the oldest." Lupin took a step away from her as if she were contagious. His expression was no longer harsh but a mix of surprise and a mournful sort of frown. She just stared at him for a moment, a strange aching in her chest as Lupin very nearly lost his composure.

Lily turned next to Hermione, who did not, she noted, look overly surprised.

"If anyone can believe me, it's you, Aunt Hermione," Lily implored her quietly. "You've been back in time yourself." There were a few sounds of surprise behind Lily.

"It was only ever a few hours," Hermione whispered. "They don't work over such a long distance."

"But it _is_ possible, going back in time."

Lily turned back to everyone else assembled before her, ready to continue, but then stopped. They weren't watching her anymore, weren't staring at her reproachfully. She instinctively started to twist her hair anxiously between her fingers and waited, holding her breath.

Her grandparents were whispering quietly with Professor McGonagall. Her Aunt Fleur was paying more attention to Bill than anything else, but looked up frequently at Lily, her expression as hard to read as ever. Harry and Ron were trading significant glances while Hermione glanced between Harry and Ginny. Ginny still looked mutinous, but she was the only one. Lupin, looking overwhelmed and exhausted, had sat down on the hospital bed Lily had vacated and Tonks was next to him. She still didn't come close to resembling the cheerful Tonks Lily had so often seen in Teddy's photos, but she looked marginally more content without Lupin pushing her away.

"So, who are you?" Ron asked when no one else spoke up. Lily turned to him, noting that he was still very tall at seventeen but still rather skinny and therefore less intimidating. "I mean," he continued with a shrug. "If you're not McGonagall's niece and you are from the future, well, who are you?"

Lily suddenly felt an overwhelming sensation of relief. "You believe me?" she asked.

Ron shrugged again. "Harry does. And so does Hermione. And Professor McGonagall and even Dumbledore did. Pretty good recommendations, those."

"My name is Lily," she said, a weary smile stretching across her mouth. She turned to Harry. "I'm telling you the truth. Everything I told you before, in Dumbledore's office, it was the truth."

Harry visibly swallowed, and then nodded. Lily offered him a shaky smile.

"This is ridiculous!" Ginny protested and Lily's eyes snapped over to see her mother's furious expression. "You really want us to believe you're Harry's daughter?"

"She's not just Harry's daughter," Hermione said to Ginny. Ginny opened her mouth furiously before pausing as Hermione's words sunk in. She blushed furiously and a moment later Harry did the same. They avoided each other's eyes. Lily even felt her own cheeks warming as she felt the eyes of everyone else on the three of them.

"Oh, dear," Mrs. Weasley put in, one hand on her heart.

Ginny looked from Hermione to Harry, then quickly to Lily and then back to Hermione. Lily watched as Ginny straightened up, crossed her arms again and said, "Prove it."

Lily's eyebrows rose in surprise and her mind cast around furiously for something, but her thoughts were still on the map. The map that her mother had never been quite as fond of….

"Well," Lily started hesitantly, "You always tell me not to trust anything that thinks for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain. But you always made an exception for the map. And Dad's old potion's book, but that doesn't really count."

Behind Ginny, Lily's grandfather smiled brightly, but Ginny herself looked less than thrilled. She looked around at everyone else but finding no support, Ginny's defiant confidence crumpled.

"You're—you're my _daughter_?" she asked and then raised a shaky hand to her forehead.

"Well, yes." Lily answered.

"That's ridiculous."

"You're telling me."

"And your name is Lily?" Lupin asked quietly. Lily turned to him and nodded. For the first time since Lily had met him, Lupin smiled and even put an arm around Tonks and pulled her closer. Lily smiled back. From the corner of her eye she saw Harry's cheeks flush.

"So what are we going to do with you now, Ms. Potter?" Professor McGonagall asked and Lily's short-lived relief and contentment was over. "The school year is certainly over at this point and-" the Headmistress's voice wavered, "well, I have no way of getting you back to where you came from."

* * *

Harry did lower his wand to the ground but not before casting a quick _muffliato_ around the two of them and, _discreetly_, motioning him to step around the end of the looming time turner shelf. He stood still, raising his hands slightly to show himself unarmed

"James," he whispered quickly over his shoulder. "I'm going to distract the Aurors. You're going to take the time turner and get the hell out of here before they know you're here."

"What? Dad, _no_."

"We know when Lily disappeared and we know she was in Hogwarts," Harry continued even more quickly than before. "Al was the last one who saw her so go to him first."

"Dad, they're here to arrest—"

"Step forward slowly, Potter!" one of the Aurors called, aiming his wand.

"Don't lose her again," Harry whispered fiercely, risking a glance over his shoulder. "Don't let Lily disappear."

With one swift movement Harry dropped to the floor, swept up his wand with one hand and fired off a harmless, but blinding curse in the direction of the Aurors. His left hand, still clutching the time turner, found James and shoved it into his hands. He heard James's faint footsteps as his son ran for the exit and Harry shot off a _reducto_ straight up to cover the noise. The bang that issued from his wand echoed in the cavernous room but the spell had cost Harry defending himself. A moment later there was an Auror on either side of him, both of their wands trained on him.

"Drop the wand!" Jordon's partner, Heddesse, ordered loudly.

"Why not just disarm me?" Harry asked as if he were leading a training session. He was determined to buy James as much time as possible. "Or stun me and render me unconscious?"

Jordon answered out of habit. "There's too much sensitive equipment in here. Any spell fire could have unexpected consequences."

Harry nodded. "The Department of Mysteries is a special case," he said conversationally.

Heddesse took a step closer, his wand pointing at Harry's head. "He's not _teaching _us, Jordon. Get your freaking act together! Now drop the wand, Potter, or I'll make you."

"By disarming me or stunning me?" Harry asked with a smirk.

Heddesse didn't answer but stepped forward and second later Harry felt the Auror's knee collide hard with his stomach. Harry dropped to his knees, his arms in front supporting him, his right hand still clenched around his wand. He took two deep breaths and steadied himself into a crouching position.

"Efficient," he said in a slightly strangled voice. A second later he swiped Heddesse's legs out from under him in a kind of leaping tackle. Heddesse let out a roar of frustration and kicked out a leg flipping Harry over onto his back. He collided slightly with one of the towering shelves around them and it swayed dangerously. There was a quiet _chink, chink_ of fragile glass. Harry and Heddesse stopped, watching with bated breath before the shelf settled back into place.

"_Freeze, both of you_!" Jordon shouted, still standing off to one side, hesitant to fire off any spells with so much experimental magic around them, let alone his partner. But Harry was already moving again, trying to get to his feet around Heddesse who was trying to restrain him.

"Oh, just stun him! STUN HIM!" Heddesse shouted as Harry struggled fiercely against him, firing off harmless stinging hexes over his shoulder. Heddesse's wand had fallen to the ground when Harry had tackled him.

Jordon hesitated and one of Harry's hexes hit his wand hand. He hissed in pain but didn't move. Another stinging hex hit Heddesse's eye. He let out a roar of pain but didn't lose his grip on Harry.

"JORDON! STUN HIM NOW!" Heddesse shouted next to Harry's ear and he winced at the sound. There was a flash of red light and Harry was unconscious.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven- Tweaking the Time Line**

_Time is what we want most, but what we use worst._

_-William Penn_

Of all the nights Lily had spent in the Hogwarts hospital wing, this was by far the longest. Although the sun had long since set, Lily remained awake, leaning against the headboard of her starchy white bed and staring into the inky blackness that filled the tall windows of the room. Her legs were pulled up to her chest and her arms were wrapped limply around her knees as she stared blankly ahead. Her eyes itched in exhaustion but she couldn't sleep. Although all the adrenaline from the evening had worn off, Lily was sore all over and miserable.

The only other occupant in the long wing was her Uncle Bill, who slept peacefully at the far end of the hall. Lily glanced over at him and saw that the gashes on his face were already healing due to Madame Pomfrey's care. The low candlelight in the room flickered and threw Bill's features into sharp relief. Lily looked away.

_Have I changed anything_, Lily wondered. Uncle Bill was still badly scarred, Dumbledore was still dead, and Snape had still killed him. It was the history she knew, but it was not at all as she had imagined it. It had all seemed so exciting, and yet so simple when she'd been younger. Now she knew it was anything but simple and any excitement was far outweighed by terror.

Lily gripped her knees more tightly and closed her eyes.

_Dumbledore's gone_, she thought and buried her face in her knees. Lily's thoughts drifted back a few weeks to when she had first woken up in 1997 and Albus Dumbledore had walked through the doors to her right. He had been everything and more that she had imagined from her father's stories of the legendary wizard. Even after knowing Dumbledore for such a short time, Lily missed him, and not only because he'd been her best hope of getting home.

With Dumbledore gone, there was little hope of Lily getting back to her time any way but the natural one. She briefly envisioned greeting the family she remembered as an adult, older than Al, James, and even Teddy. She shivered and pushed that thought away.

Stretching, Lily let herself collapse into the pillow behind her and curled up on her side. Despite the stiff and scratchy bedding of the hospital wing, Lily was glad she had opted to stay there for the night rather than returning to Gryffindor Tower. Madame Pomfrey hadn't argued and Lily had watched without regret as Harry, Ginny, and the others departed for the night.

Lily knew they were talking about her but she preferred their speculating to the numerous questions she would have been submitted to in their presence.

As her tired eyes began to slip closed, Lily couldn't help entertaining the feeble hope that she would wake up somewhere more familiar, in her _own_ bed, all of this just a bad dream. She was just drifting off when a weight settled on the end of her bed and Lily started out of her dozing state.

Lily sat up quickly and twisted to see Ginny sitting by her feet, staring back at her. Lily looked away and sat up straighter in the bed.

"I didn't hear you come back. You startled me," she mumbled.

"Sorry," Ginny answered, though she didn't sound all too apologetic. Her gaze didn't waver from Lily's face. "Everyone seems to believe your story," Ginny continued. "That you're from the _future_."

Lily couldn't ignore that suspicion in Ginny's voice. "And what do you believe?" she asked quietly.

For a moment, Ginny didn't say anything at all. She simply stared at Lily and Lily stared right back, waiting.

"You know things," Ginny conceded in an even tone. "Things you shouldn't. It's just that… it's just so…."

Lily sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "So impossible?"

"Yes." Ginny looked a little defiant.

Once again, Lily was reminded of her first meeting with Dumbledore. She had been so reluctant to believe something so ridiculous as her having traveled through time. She had told him it was impossible. If only she could _remember_ how she'd gotten here, maybe she would be home.

Lily shifted her weight and turned her gaze to the window again. The stars had come out, but the night was no less dark. "I wish it _was_ impossible," she said in a tired voice. "I want so badly to be home. But that's not looking very likely anymore. Not with Dumbledore…"

"Dead," Ginny finished somberly. She turned to look over at Bill and Lily saw her expression harden. "There really is going to be a war, isn't there?"

Lily looked over at Bill as well. "It's already started."

The two were quiet for a little while after that. Lily considered the Ginny Weasley before her and marveled at her teenage mother's courage. The fifteen-year-old sitting on her bed seemed neither frightened nor intimidated by the war that would soon be raging in the wizarding world. Lily was _terrified_ that she might still be in 1997 when things really began to go badly. Voldemort was history to Lily and she wanted him to stay that way.

"But we're going to win," Ginny murmured fiercely, still looking at Bill. "We have to."

Lily remained quiet, not sure that Ginny's words were meant for her. They would indeed win and Voldemort would be defeated. But a lot of terrible things would happen before that day and Voldemort wouldn't be the _only_ one to die.

Lily had never understood what war really meant. She still didn't, and she didn't want to. Lily did not want to see anyone die.

"We all make it through all right, don't we?"

This time Lily knew that Ginny was speaking to her. Her mother's fierce gaze had turned away from Bill and was now aimed at Lily, who opened her mouth only to have no sound come out. She was about to tell her mother that _yes_, everyone did make it through all right, knowing it wasn't true, but before she had the chance, a sharp pain suddenly exploded in the back of her head.

* * *

James ran as he never had in his life.

He ran out of the Department of Mysteries, up the flights of stairs to the atrium of the ministry, and hurtled through the throngs of people there until he reached the fireplaces lining the walls. He ignored the angry exclamations of the witches and wizards he had shoved in his hurry, grabbed a handful of floo powder from beside the closest grate, and through it into the flames. With a hurried shout of "Twelve Grimmauld Place!" James disappeared from the ministry.

All the time, the time turner remained clenched in his sweaty fist.

James's momentum carried him through the swirling mass of fireplaces until he was spit out onto the carpet of his parent's London home. Lying there, face pressed into the floor, James felt his heart beating against his chest and tried to steady his breathing while everything that had just happened caught up with him. By now, Dad had most likely been arrested for… quite a few things actually. Most recently, breaking into the Department of Mysteries and stealing—

No.

Harry Potter never left the Department of Mysteries with a time turner in his possession. He, James, had stolen it. His fist closed more tightly around the fragile glass hourglass still in his hand. His father's desperate voice came to him. _Don't lose her again. Don't let Lily disappear._

James took a deep breath and got shakily to his feet.

_Al was the last one who saw her so go to him first_.

James jogged to the stairs and began bounding up them. "ALBUS! _ALBUS!_"

As James crashed up the stairs and rounded the corner of the second floor landing, Al burst out of his room, wand in hand. James opened his mouth but his breath had left him in his flight up the stairs.

"_What?_ What is it?" Al asked frantically. "Is everyone all right?"

"We have to go to Hogwarts," James croaked out. "I need your help. Come on." James grabbed Al's shoulder and started to pull him towards the stairs.

"James, what are you talking about? Wait. _Stop_." Al jerked out of James's grip and stepped away from the stairs. "James, what the _hell_ is going on?"

"Yes, James, what the _hell _is going on?"

James and Al turned to see Teddy coming down from third floor, his green hair out of place in the surrounding décor of Grimmauld Place. Like Al, he also had his wand out, but his expression was much calmer.

"I heard yelling. Is everyone all right?"

"Well I don't know about James here, but he's frantic, won't tell me anything." Al stowed his wand in the back pocket of his jeans and now crossed his arms with raised eyebrows.

"James?"

James responded only by holding the time turner out in front of him. It dangled on its short chain, glimmering in the light. Al stared wide-eyed between the time turner and James, his mouth gaping like a fish, his arms falling limp at his side.

Teddy stepped slowly down the remaining stairs to the second floor landing. "James, where did you get that?" he asked quietly.

"Does it really matter?" James thought of his dad. "It's about time we did something to get Lily back."

James watched Teddy's expression flicker with doubt. His hair faded back to its natural brown. "This is very illegal. You shouldn't even _have_ that, James."

Al huffed impatiently. "Teddy, this was _your_ idea."

"It doesn't matter whose idea it was," James put in quickly. "It's happening right now. Al, you were the last one of us to see Lily. I need your help." James straightened his shoulders and turned to Teddy. "So are you coming or not?"

Al's expression hardened. "Damn straight I'm coming."

The two brothers looked at Teddy, who nodded and took the lead. "Okay. Al, go grab the Cloak from your room. We'll Apparate to Hogsmeade and then use the time turner once we're in the castle."

Al disappeared back into his room to fetch their father's Invisibility Cloak and Teddy turned to James.

"How are we going to find Lily once we go back?"

"We know where they found the broken time turner and the Marauder's Map. We'll wait there, under the cloak."

Al came back a moment later, the infallible cloak shimmering in his arms.

"We're really doing this," Al asked.

"For Lily," James answered quietly. "We bringing Lily back."

* * *

Evening was falling quickly but Hogsmeade was still brimming with shoppers and villagers when James, Al, and Teddy arrived. They Apparated into an alley behind the Three Broomsticks, which was thankfully vacant, but the sounds of people from the main street reached them as soon as they appeared.

"I _hate_ Apparating," Al grumbled.

"Al, stop grumbling and put the cloak on," Teddy whispered harshly. James noticed that Teddy had naturally taken the lead and Al put the cloak on without complaint.

"Why do I have to be invisible?" Al's voice asked quietly.

"Because you're still a student and today is not a Hogsmeade visit," Teddy answered. "We don't want to draw any unnecessary attention."

"It's not like anyone _knows_ what we're doing," Al protested weakly. "And I haven't been at school since Lily disappeared."

"Al, just shut it, okay?" James cut in.

"Al, we'd all be wearing the cloak if it fit, but as it doesn't, and as you're the most conspicuous, you have the honor of being invisible." Teddy flashed a small grin to where they had seen Al disappear under the cloak. "Now, let's go."

James followed behind Teddy as they made their way out into the High Street, marveling at how easily he took to leading. James knew Teddy had been a prefect, but had always chalked that up to good grades. Now he saw that Teddy really did handle situations well.

The High Street buzzed with evening shoppers, all hurrying about to get their errands done before the shops closed for the night. At the sight of so many people, James began to feel a little nervous for the first time since leaving the Department of Mysteries. Already, that seemed like years ago, when in reality it had been less than an hour.

Falling into step beside Teddy, James wondered if he should try to make small talk to blend in and not arouse suspicion. A passing witch smiled at him and he felt his cheeks flare up.

"James, relax," Teddy said quietly to him as they made their way towards the Hogwarts gates. "You're breathing like you've run a marathon."

James nodded and tried to steady his erratic breathing. He could have sworn he heard Al snicker behind them.

The reached the Hogwarts gates without incident and were allowed entry by the presence of Al. Only students and expected visitors were permitted, but as Al was still a student they had no problem. The walk up to the castle felt like an eternity to James. He watched his long shadow stretch out in front of him as the sun set behind the village.

"Near the Great Hall, right?" James asked quietly.

He heard Al answer from behind. "Yeah. That's where they found the map."

"Then that's where we'll wait," Teddy said. "Everyone should be done with dinner by now. I hope there aren't too many students around."

But there weren't.

By the time James and the others entered Hogwarts, the sun had set entirely. Thankfully, they didn't have far to go once they'd entered the castle. They were outside the Great Hall in a matter of minutes, only passing one curious Ravenclaw on the way to no consequence.

James assumed that most students would be in the common rooms or in the library with exams coming up. Al remained under the cloak, though James caught sight of his feet a few times, and Teddy leaned nonchalantly against a wall outside the Great Hall.

As they stood there, James was almost surprised to see it the corridor as vacant and ordinary as the others. He didn't realize he had been expecting _something_ to tell them what had happened to Lily. If he hadn't already known, James would never have suspected that his little sister had disappeared here.

"So, how exactly do we do this?" Al asked after a few minutes. "We just turn it? Until we get there?"

"Are we all going?" James asked.

"We all _came_, didn't we?" Al shot back.

"I think one of us should stay behind," Teddy suggested. "Just in case this doesn't go as planned."

James nodded his agreement but Al was quiet. He pulled off the cloak. "Well, I'm not staying behind," he said.

James supposed they really should have worked all this out before coming. What was he getting them all into? "I'll stay," he said, surprising himself. Al and Teddy looked at him. "Al, you know the castle better that I do. And Teddy, this was your idea."

He paused. "I'm not chickening out," he continued hurriedly as Al raised a skeptical eyebrow. "It just makes more sense this way. And, well, we're not entirely sure what's going to happen, are we? What if we all just disappeared?"

Al suddenly looked mutinous. "We're doing this to _fix_ things, James. Everything's going back to normal now."

James was still hesitant. "Dad said he didn't know _what_ would happen if you change something in time. I figure, even if this is our best shot at getting Lily back, we don't know that it will work."

"It's our _only_ chance of getting Lily back, James," Teddy said. "And it _will _work."

"You don't know—" James started, but Al cut him off.

"None of us _know_, James," he said hotly, "but this is all we can do! Stay here if you want, but Teddy and I are going to go fix things."

Al held out his hand expectantly for the time turner but James handed it to Teddy instead. Al was about to protest when James caught him in a hug. James held his brother tight and hoped with all he had that this worked.

"If you don't come back, Mum will murder me," he said, trying and failing to sound casual.

Al didn't answer, but hugged back. When James let go of the embrace and stepped back, Teddy caught him in a quick one-armed hug.

"See you soon, James."

James took another step back and watched as his brother and Teddy disappeared under the Cloak. "Good luck," he whispered. There was a faint sound like a chain clinking against itself and then James was alone.

* * *

Lily let out a cry of pain and her hands flew up to her head. She was barely aware of her surroundings but she heard someone yelling her name.

"Lily? _Lily?_"

The voice wavered in Lily's ears as her head throbbed in pain. She couldn't respond and vaguely felt herself collapse against the bed. She curled up on her side and let out a moan as her fingers gripped at her hair. As if from very far away, Lily heard Ginny calling for Madame Pomfrey.

"Lily? What's wrong? _Lily!_"

"Mum?" Lily murmured and she thought her voice might have slurred. She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Madame Pomfrey, I don't know what happened, she just _collapsed_."

Ginny's voice was frantic and it did nothing to sooth Lily's aching head. She couldn't open her eyes for pain but Lily thought she felt a hand on her shoulder. And then she knew Madame Pomfrey was there. She could here the matron's steady voice and waited for the pain to subside. She peaked through her eyelids and saw Madame Pomfrey's hazy form in front of her.

And then she wasn't.

And Lily wasn't lying down anymore either, though she didn't remember sitting up. Her head spun and she felt dizzy and disoriented. Ginny was sitting calmly on the end of her bed and Madame Pomfrey was nowhere to be seen. Lily blinked rapidly as if to clear her vision. Her head was still pounding.

"There really is going to be a war, isn't there?" Ginny was saying as she stared down the wing at Bill.

Lily brought up a hand to her aching head and stared at Ginny in confusion.

"What?"

But Ginny didn't seem to hear her. She continued to stare at her brother. Lily felt her breathing hitch.

Lily's head throbbed intensely and she gasped and squeezed her eyes shut again. Her hands groped around and gripped fiercely at the sheets of her bed.

When she opened her eyes again, Ginny was still seated on her bed and Lily almost sighed in relief before she heard, "Everyone certainly seems to believe your story. That you're from the _future_."

Lily stared at her fifteen-year-old mother and struggled to find words but only ended up moaning in pain. Her eyes began to water and she rubbed at them vigorously. When she looked again, Ginny was gone.

"_What_ is going on?" Lily burst out desperately. Her head throbbed and her vision was blurring. Just as she was turning to curl up on the hospital bed, she found herself standing in a hospital wing full of people, staring at her, some of then angrily. Lily blinked in shock as Harry started shouting.

"Everything you've told us since you've been here has been a lie! You're not McGonagall's _niece_, you're not a student here, and you're not my _daughter_ from the future!"

Lily let out a small scream of frustration and fear and her heart pounded against her chest. She was confused and scared. Lily felt herself shaking and she pressed the palms of hands to her face. And then something next to her exploded.

Lily screamed again, this time as curses of every color flew past her, a battle raging around her. She turned frantically in every direction and saw Death Eaters and students and members of the Order of the Phoenix. She saw rubble and _blood_. Lily heard screams and shouts of curses and the instant she turned toward one of the windows she saw Albus Dumbledore's body plummeting to the earth in a graceful arc.

Collapsing, Lily felt tears sting at her eyes while her head continued to pound and her whole body shook. Images began to fly more and more quickly in front of her eyes. She caught snatches of conversation, random sounds.

"_You believe me?"_

"_I don't know. Maybe. Dumbledore believes you."_

"_I think I would know if I had a kid!"_

"_Lily Evans was my grandmother."_

"_Lily who?"  
"Lily Potter."_

_Harry and Snape were arguing._

_She was meeting her fifteen-year-old mother._

"_MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM!"_

"_You look more like my friend, Ginny."_

"_It is April eleventh, Ms. Potter. And it is 1997."_

"_You think I traveled through time, don't you?"_

The pain in Lily's head reached a peak and her vision blackened. The next thing she knew, she couldn't see or hear anything at all.

* * *

**AN- Chapter Eleven! Finally it has arrived. To anyone who's still sticking with me, you are beyond wonderful, and to new readers I hope you will continue to read. We're almost done, folks.**

**Thanks to my beta, who has certainly stuck with me, ellaminnowpea91, and who is registered with FFN's betareader's listing.**

**Please review.**

* * *


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve- Full Circle**

Lily opened her eyes to find herself alone in the Gryffindor common room.

It was clearly late as the fire in the grate had simmered down to embers and the common room was empty. Lily blinked a few times, confused, before glancing down at her lap, which was laden with textbooks and a half-written essay. As she rubbed her eyes to try to focus, she noticed that they felt puffy and that her head was aching a little. _Probably from another late night of homework_, she thought. _I must have fallen asleep right here in the common room_.

But something was nagging at her from the back of her mind, like a dream rapidly disappearing after waking up. After a moment of strained concentration, Lily shook her head as if to clear it and re-read the last paragraph of her essay to see where she had left off before falling asleep.

Half an hour later, Lily had finished her essay and closed up her textbooks. Setting aside her parchment and quill, Lily stretched, stiff from sitting so long in one place, and then sank back into the plushy red fabric of her chair.

With OWLs coming up soon the fifth years had more work than ever; this was not the first time she'd dozed off in mid-assignment. However, while the late hour didn't bother her very much, the throbbing pain in the back of her head was beginning to get on her nerves. So, despite the fact that almost everyone else in the Tower was probably asleep, Lily sat awake in the common room, waiting for the pain in her head to subside.

Lily felt oddly restless as she sat by the dying fire. The common room was almost unbearably quiet, like sudden silence after a very loud noise. She tried to remember what she had been dreaming about. For some reason, she thought it had something to do with her parents. And Albus Dumbledore. And the hospital wing. Lily's hand absently went to her side and she was surprised when there was no pain there. Then, confused, she couldn't think why there should be any pain at all.

She had a sudden urge to see James and her parents, and even Al though she was sure she'd seen him earlier that day. Even as a first year, away from home for the first time, Lily had never wanted to see her parents more than she did right now. The term would be over in a few weeks, but that seemed an eternity away.

More restless than ever, Lily decided to take a walk to clear her head. She put her essay safely away in her bag and pulled on her shoes before making her way through the portrait hole and into the corridor beyond.

Luckily, the Fat Lady was asleep in her frame and Lily avoided a rebuke at her obvious breach of curfew. But being out after curfew was no strange thing for any of the Potter children and they were all familiar enough with the Fat Lady to know she didn't mind them sneaking out half as much as she pretended.

As Lily had expected, the corridors were vacant, lit only by the moonlight shining through the tall windows to her left. Lily doubted any of the professors would be out patrolling at this time of night but still wished she had the Marauders' Map with her. Most likely, it was stowed away in the dingy office of Argus Filch, who didn't know what the map was, but who had confiscated it anyway when he'd caught Al out after hours.

Keen for something to keep her mind occupied, Lily decided a quest to retrieve the Marauders' Map would serve her well. She abruptly changed her course and headed in the direction of Filch's office.

_Filch probably won't even notice that the map is missing_, she thought.

A few minutes later Lily arrived at Filch's office without even the whisper of someone else in the corridors. She stared for a moment at the simple wooden door labeled _Caretaker_, drew her wand, whispered, "_Alohamora_," and the door swung open.

"_Lumos_," Lily whispered and the small space was suddenly lit with the bright light from her wand. The office clearly reflected Filch's distaste of anything dirty or out of place, with filing cabinets neatly lining the back wall and the papers on his desk stacked in tidy piles. Lily made her way around the desk and began to inspect the cabinets.

When she reached the drawer labeled _Confiscated and Highly Dangerous_ Lily grinned and pulled it open. Something in the drawer began growling and Lily hesitated but caught sight of an old Fanged Frisbee in the back and let out a small sigh of relief. After very little search, she found the Marauders' Map shoved into one of the front corners looking a little rumpled and worse for wear but definitely intact. Indeed, to Lily, parchment nearly forty years old had never looked so good.

Lily pocketed the map in her robes, hid the Fanged Frisbee on the seat of Filch's chair on a whim, and left the office.

On her way back to the common room, Lily took the map from her pocket and thought about how relieved Al would be that it was no longer in the hands of Argus Filch. Smiling, Lily pointed her wand to the parchment and quietly recited, "_I solemnly swear that I am up to no good_."

Ink immediately began to spiral and swirl to the edges of the map, revealing, as always, the layout of Hogwarts and the location of everyone inside it. As Lily strolled down the hall, she noted without surprise that most of the black dots were bundled in the four common rooms, with a lone dot here or there for the professors. She found herself on first floor, _Lily Potter_ moving along, and then another dot moving nearby caught her eye.

Lily stopped and thought that perhaps one of the professors was still out patrolling the castle. When she read the name _Pansy Parkinson_ her brow furrowed.

It was probably one of the younger students in one of the other houses. There weren't all that many students at Hogwarts, but no one knew them all, except maybe the Head Boy and Girl. As Lily continued to stare at the map she saw _Pansy Parkinson_ heading towards the Great Hall, just a few corridors away from Lily was standing.

It didn't take long for Lily to decide to turn around and head back to the Great Hall. Her mother always said she was too curious for her own good, but her dad had always seemed to encourage it.

_Besides, _Lily thought,_ this Pansy Parkinson is also breaking curfew. It's not as if she can get me in trouble._

Walking briskly now, but very quietly, Lily made her way towards the Great Hall, wiping the map blank as she went. When she made it to the end of the next corridor, she stopped and peered slowly around the last corner. The hall in front of her was empty, with no sign of any other student. With a little sigh, Lily straightened up and made to turn around when she heard footsteps coming to a stop right behind her.

Lily gasped, spun around, and found herself looking up, not at a student, but at a middle-aged blonde woman with a sickly smile on her face.

In an instant, Lily swung her hands behind her back, one clutching the map, the other her wand.

"And what are you doing here, darling?" Pansy Parkinson asked her in a honeyed voice. "It's very late and you should be in bed."

Lily began to back away, wanting as much distance as possible between herself and Parkinson, but Pansy was coming towards her. Lily didn't say anything.

"What's your name, dear?"

Again, Lily didn't answer Pansy's honeyed question. The next time Pansy spoke her voice was harsher. "What _exactly_ are you doing wandering the corridors at this time of night?" Her threatening form was advancing more quickly now.

Still backing away, Lily said weakly, "I left some homework in the library. I'm leaving- going back to my common room now."

"Well, I'm not so sure you are," Pansy answered quietly. Lily's back hit the stone wall behind her. Her grip on her wand tightened convulsively but she was at a loss as to what to do with it.

"I'm afraid I can't have anyone knowing I was here," Pansy continued and smiled. "And that includes you."

Pansy raised her wand and Lily's eyes widened.

"_Oblivi_—"

In sudden desperation, Lily threw her arms out to shove the woman away. Pansy let out a surprised grunt before she finished her spell as Lily's hands pushed hard at her shoulders and one closed around a chain that hung around Pansy's neck. It pulled apart as Pansy shoved Lily away.

Lily fell hard on the floor, her hand still clasped around her wand, and the chain she'd torn from Pansy's neck.

"You little _brat_," Pansy whispered harshly and raised her wand again before she froze, her eyes locked on Lily's hand.

Lily flinched and then turned towards her hand as well. Dangling from the chain was a small shimmering hourglass. A time turner.

_Illegal. Dangerous._

Lily began to scoot away from Pansy, still on the floor, but Pansy lunged after her and Lily screamed. With Pansy practically on top of her and the corridor so dark, Lily couldn't see anything. But she felt long fingernails trying to pry open her grip and she pushed with her legs to try to shove Pansy off of her. She dropped the map and tried to push one-handed, but didn't' dare let go of her wand, and therefore the time turner. As a hand gripped at her shoulder and neck, putting pressure on her windpipe, Lily screamed again, this time more hoarse from the weight on her neck.

Trying to aim her wand, Lily's arm flailed against the woman strangling her and one swing flung the time turner and her wand from her grip. It rose into the air above them as Pansy shouted, "_NO!_"

Pansy leapt off of Lily to try to catch the time turner but it was too dark in the corridor and she flung her arms out in vain. Then it caught a ray of moonlight and the two of them watched as it began to fall to the ground as if in slow motion.

* * *

"Okay, stop," Al whispered and watched as Teddy stilled the time turner and held it firmly in his grasp. Al looked around hesitantly. The corridor looked exactly the same as they had left it a few weeks into the future. It was hard to believe that they had traveled back in time at all. But it had to have worked because James was no longer standing in front of them.

They had certainly gone back in time. But how far exactly had they come?

_Are we too early?_ Al wondered. _Are we too late?_

"What if we counted wrong," Al asked awkwardly. "How are we supposed to know when we are?"

Teddy looked as uncertain as Al felt and it did nothing to alleviate his worries. They didn't know exactly when Lily had disappeared and they didn't know exactly how far they had come. In his eagerness to anything and everything to save Lily, it had not occurred to Al that the plan could be at all flawed. For the first time, doubts were entering Al's mind and he shuddered.

"We can't be too far off the mark," Teddy said quietly, but not as confident as Al would have liked.

"A lot can go wrong in over five hundred turns," he replied dryly. Teddy's face darkened in frustration.

"I suppose we should just have a look around then," he offered in a level voice. "Keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

Al nodded and shrugged off the Invisibility Cloak. For a moment it looked as though he was alone, but then Teddy emerged from the invisible folds and pocketed the Cloak.

"Wands out?" Al suggested with a sidelong glance at Teddy, who nodded and drew his own.

"We should each go in one direction, I think," Teddy said. "I'll head this way, and you can go the other." He nodded to indicate what he meant and Al swallowed. Teddy put a hand on his shoulder and whispered, "Lily's here somewhere, Al. She's _here_. Let's go make sure it stays that way."

With the thought of Lily actually _in_ the castle with them, Al's confidence in what they were doing returned full-force. He was brimming now with a determination to save his little sister from whatever had happened to her. And he would do whatever it took.

"Well, let's get a move on then. We're wasting time."

Teddy offered a quick grin, his hair blending to its usual teal, before turning and heading off down the far corridor. Al raised his wand and set off in the opposite direction. He made his way slowly down the hall, eyes peeled for anything that looked out of place or dangerous. With only a rough idea of where Lily had disappeared, he didn't know exactly what he should be looking for.

Slow minutes passed as Al searched the familiar halls for anything out of place. Once or twice he thought he heard footsteps in the distance but when he stopped and strained his ears, they were gone. He assumed it must have been Teddy. Al didn't want to stray too far from the Great Hall and doubled back to retrace his steps, each time with a sigh of frustration.

And then Lily screamed.

Al recognized his sister immediately. He had heard her scream often enough at him and James to know what it sounded like, but his heart sped up at the note of fear that had filled the corridor a second ago.

Hand gripping his wand more tightly, Al broke into a run, sprinting in the direction of the scream. His feet pounded on the stone floor of the corridor and his breathing hitched in his throat as he forced himself to go as fast as possible. Al darted around the next corner and then he saw them.

His legs slowed of their own accord at the sight of his sister, his first sight of her in weeks. She was struggling under the weight of the woman attacking her. As he sped up, aiming his wand, Lily screamed again, this time as if through pressure against her throat.

As Al prepared to stun Lily's attacker, who he could only assume was Pansy Parkinson, a bright glimmer of glass caught his eye and Pansy's shout of, "_NO!_" distracted him. He saw it, the time turner, hurtling into the air and the falling again, falling towards Lily, and in an instant Al imagined his sister disappearing before his very eyes while he stood there and did nothing but instead he aimed his wand and shouted, "_ACCIO!_"

Everything froze for a moment in Al's mind as he held his breath. He felt cool glass slip into his waiting hand and he stood, shocked, unable to even breathe a sigh of relief.

Al heard a wand clatter on the floor and he shook his head as if to clear it. His gaze sought out his sister, who was staring back at him, wide-eyed and clearly frightened and Al had never been happier to see her.

There was little time for relief however, as Pansy had recovered quickly and now had her wand pointed at Al's chest. He froze, wand in one hand, time turner in the other, and stood silently as he watched Parkinson's manic expression.

"Give me the time turner," she ordered him, a slightly crazed wavering in her voice. Al made no move to do as she said and Pansy became visibly more flustered. "_GIVE it to me!_" she shouted and Al flinched. He took a step away from her and she moved her wand to his head.

"Another _Potter_," she spat, eyeing him up and down. "You look just like your father." Her tone clearly indicated that this was in no way a positive thing. Still, Al did nothing.

With a glance over Pansy's shoulder, Al saw Lily searching frantically on the ground and he realized that it must have been her wand that he had heard clattering onto the floor before. He turned his attention back to Parkinson again and sought around for some way to keep her distracted.

"You wouldn't dare risk hitting this," he said with a jerk of the time turner. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he watched her wand aimed between his eyes. But he kept talking. "Soon, they'll notice what's happened. How you attacked Terry Boot in the Department of Mysteries, modified his memory, and stole a time turner. And you'll never get your hands on another one. What exactly were you trying to do anyway?"

Pansy's expression folded into complete shock for just an instant before she masked it again. "I'm setting things right," she said confidently as she took another step towards Al. He held the time tuner tighter and moved it into the path of her wand. Pansy seemed unperturbed by this and continued approaching, a glint in her eyes. "I'm making sure _you_ will never have existed and your pathetic father dies at the hands of the greatest wizard to have ever lived."

"Albus Dumbledore was the greatest wizard to have ever lived," Al retorted.

Pansy laughed. The sound grated on Al's ears. "_Just_ like your father," she sneered. "But not for long."

Al thought he heard running footsteps coming towards them.

_Teddy must have heard,_ he thought. They had been making an awful lot of noise. But before this thought could cause him very much relief, Pansy swung her wand down in an arc and his abdomen exploded with pain.

* * *

Lily was almost in tears as she searched frantically for her wand. She didn't know where Al had come from but he had arrived just in time. And now he was staring down the end of Pansy Parkinson's wand and she couldn't do _anything_ to help and _where_ was her _damn_ wand?

Al screamed and Lily' head flew up in time to see him falling backwards onto the floor. Without thinking, she darted up and ran towards Parkinson, frantic to stop her. With no wand, Lily did the only thing she could think of and threw her weight at Pansy, grabbing her in a running tackle and the two of them fell to the ground beside Al. Lily threw her hands out to brace herself from the fall and they slid in blood that was pouring from Al's side.

Lily didn't register the pain in her knees or wrists from the fall. She was staring as the red now staining her hands and listening to Al's pained groan beside her. Pansy was already on her feet again and before Lily knew it, she was flung against the wall, her head colliding swiftly with the stone. She tried to yell, but the impact had knocked the wind from her. She stared, frozen, at Al's bloodied form while Pansy Parkinson approached him and then heard running footsteps from the far end of the corridor.

Suddenly, Teddy was there and Lily neither knew nor cared why. He couldn't be here, he was supposed to be out of the country, but Lily didn't _care_ because he was here now.

In a flash of red, Pansy's wand was ripped from her grasp and flew down the corridor towards Teddy, who stood with a fierce expression on his face. Pansy whipped around with a frustrated shriek to see who had deprived her of her wand but as she was now weaponless, she did nothing to retaliate.

There was silence for a moment and then Al groaned again in pain, his hands still clutching his wand and the time turner but also clutching at the bloody wound now ripped into his abdomen. Lily pushed herself onto all fours, her head giving a violent throb, and started to make her way over to her brother.

Teddy approached the three of them, his wand still trained on Parkinson, whose expression was quickly falling into a confused sort of dispair. Lily was sure she hadn't meant to encounter anyone tonight.

Lily nearly collapsed halfway to Al and she felt naucious and dizzy. When she managed to pull herself up again and finally reached Al, she looked down at his face, which was pale and sweaty. Al smiled when he saw her. Lily didn't know what to do.

"Teddy," she said in a wavering voice, ignoring Pansy's presence, "we have to get Al to the hospital wing."

Teddy nodded, but his eyes didn't leave Parkinson's face. He didn't say anything, merely pulled back his fist and slugged her under the chin. Pansy let out a surprised grunt before collapsing to the floor beside Lily and a moment later, Teddy stunned her and she fell unconscious.

Al chuckled weakly before grimacing

"Teddy, the hospital wing," Lily said again, her own head swimming painfully.

"There's one more thing we have to do," he told her, and bent down on Al's other side. Gently, Teddy pried the now bloody hourglass from Al's hand and the three of them looked at it for a moment. Then, with a complicated wave of his wand, Teddy vanished the time turner.

Lily's head throbbed again, and she thought dimly that she must have hit it pretty hard on the wall because Al and Teddy were starting to fade from her vision. She watched as Teddy's hand reached out to her, a concerned expression on his face, but when Lily tried to grab it she went through him. It was like passing through a ghost, but without the unpleasant chill. A moment later, Teddy and Al were nowhere to be seen and Lily fainted.

* * *

Lily woke slowly, pulling the heavily layered linen covers closer to her body in an attempt to hold in the warmth. The pillow beneath her head was a bit lumpy but otherwise comfortable and she buried her face deeper into it. She kept her eyes closed hoping that she would drift back into sleep. She couldn't remember what she had been dreaming about, which was strange, but it didn't worry her. Lily's sleepy mind was more concerned with the light _tick tick tick _sounding near her right ear.

For a moment, Lily couldn't place the sound, but she soon identified it as the soft tick of the second hand on her watch. Her mother had given her that watch and Lily kept obsessively good care of it. Al and James always made fun of her but she would still strap it carefully onto her wrist in the morning and she was careful not to bang it or scratch it on anything during the day. And every night she would take it off and place it carefully on the nightstand beside her bed. She never went to sleep with it on.

And yet, here she was, drifting between being awake and asleep and it was clearly strapped to her wrist, ticking away.

Lily opened her eyes as this thought occurred to her but immediately shut them again due to a bright white glare that had flashed at her eyes. Taking more care to shield her eyes from the light, she rolled onto her back and lifted her arm over her face causing the muscles in her shoulder to twinge painfully. She winced slightly. Lily slowly peeked through her eyelids and found her surroundings to be made up of a starchy white- the ceiling, the walls- all lit with the bright, near-afternoon sun. Lily's mind was still foggy with sleep and she furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

Why was she in the hospital wing?

As Lily lay there, contemplating her sore muscles and her presence in the hospital wing, Madame Pomfrey bustled into the ward from her office and made her way swiftly to Lily's beside.

"Up at last I see, Potter. I thought you were going to sleep the whole day away." The stern tone of the matron didn't fool Lily though. She offered her best smile to Madame Pomfrey before inquiring as to why exactly she was in the hospital wing at all.

"We were hoping you could tell us," Madame Pomfrey answered mysteriously. "I'll just go inform the headmistress that you're awake. She's been eager to speak with you."

Lily's brow furrowed as she watched Madame Pomfrey stroll confidently out of the hospital wing. She thought back to the night before and had the feeling that something terrible had happened. And then she remembered.

_Pansy Parkinson. Time turner. Albus. Blood. Teddy._

Lily gasped as the night before came flooding back to her. She had been out after hours and encountered Pansy Parkinson, a blonde woman with a sickening smile. She had tried to erase Lily's memory. But Al had shown up. And Teddy. And Al had been hurt, and there had been blood _everywhere_.

Lily looked frantically around the hospital wing to find Al but the rest of the beds were vacant. There had been so much blood. Perhaps they had taken him to St. Mungo's?

"Ms. Potter, I'm glad to see you're awake."

Headmistress McGonagall strode into the hospital wing with Madame Pomfrey at her side. The matron returned to her office while McGonagall took a seat next to Lily's bed.

"How are you feeling?"

Lily shrugged. "Fine, I suppose. A little sore. Where's Al?"

McGonagall's eyes narrowed slightly. "I would hope he is in class," she said. "Though Madame Pomfrey tells me he's already been to visit you once this morning, after breakfast."

"So he's all right then?" Lily responded hopefully.

The headmistress paused visibly. "Is there any reason he wouldn't be?"

Lily blinked. "He was hurt! There was blood everywhere and I kept telling Teddy that we had to get him to the hospital…" Lily trailed off, watching McGonagall's perplexed expression.

"Teddy Lupin?" she asked. Lily nodded hesitantly, feeling distinctly wrong-footed.

"What else do you remember about last night, Ms. Potter?"

Lily thought back, trying to dredge up as many details as possible. "I was out after hours," she began, not meeting Professor McGonagall's eyes. "And then I ran into a woman, near the Great Hall." She was careful to leave out the name, not wanting any questions about the map. But McGonagall seemed to know to whom she was referring.

"Yes, Pansy Parkinson. She's been handed into Auror custody."

Lily nodded and continued. "She had a time turner with her." McGonagall's eyebrows rose. "And she tried to erase my memory. But then Al showed up and he got _hurt_ but then Teddy was there and he stunned Pansy Parkinson and vanished the time turner and then…"

Lily suddenly recalled the strange sensation of her hand passing through Teddy's. "And then I think I fainted," she finished somewhat lamely.

McGonagall's expression was vaguely surprised and as Lily thought about it she supposed her story didn't really make very much sense. The two of them sat in silence for a few moments. A sudden buzz of conversation in the halls signaled the end of class and a moment later, Lily looked over to see Al sticking his head into the hospital wing.

"Lily!" he said cheerfully. "You're awake!"

Madame Pomfrey appeared from her office at the sound of visitors but McGonagall nodded her okay and the matron went to bustling about the ward, tiding up potion cabinets and bedside tables.

Lily watched as Al approached, looking healthy and upbeat and not at all as though he'd suffered from any sort of severe blood loss the night before. She furrowed her brow in confusion.

"Mr. Potter, I'm glad you could join us," McGonagall said as Al pulled up another chair beside Lily. "Your sister has been quite concerned about you."

Lily was still staring at her brother, half expecting him to fall over at any moment. "You're all right?" she asked, despite all signs that he was absolutely fine.

Al nodded, looking curiously between his sister and his headmistress. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because I saw you covered in blood last night!" Lily burst out in frustration. "Right after you saved me from Pansy Parkinson! You were collapsed on the ground, bleeding _everywhere_ and–"

"Ms. Potter, that's enough," McGonagall cut in with a glance at Al, who'd gone pale but merely looked confused. Her head started to hurt from her own shouting and Lily recalled that she had banged it against the wall last night.

"Lily…" he began. "Lily I didn't leave the dorm last night. They told me this morning that you were in the hospital wing. I don't know what…" he trailed off, looking worried for her sanity.

"But you were there," she implored him. He merely shook his head. "You and Teddy. You were both there."

"Teddy's still out of the country," Al replied. "Lily I wasn't there, I promise."

Over the next half an hour, McGonagall, Al, and Madame Pomfrey came to the conclusion that Lily's hit to the head had jumbled her memory of the night, and with no other logical explanation Lily was forced to believe them. She _had _hit her head, she remembered. But she had been trying to get Pansy Parkinson away from _Albus_, hadn't she?

Eventually, Headmistress McGonagall left and Madame Pomfrey went back to her work but Al stuck around being done with classes for the day. They didn't talk about what had happened that night, Lily frustrated at her memory and Al worried for his sister. About an hour after that, her parents arrived, along with James, and even Teddy, who had Apparated back upon hearing the news. The Potter family sat in the hospital wing, chatting and laughing and reminiscing about all of her father's trips there in his Hogwarts days.

"And don't worry, Lily," her father said a little later, "Pansy Parkinson confessed under veritaserum that she had stolen a time turner and attempted to use it illegally. She's going to prison. It was lucky you were there."

"And that you have such a mean right hook," James said. Lily raised an eyebrow at him. "I saw her when they brought her in. She had a nasty bruise on her jaw."

Lily just sat there, confused. She didn't remember punching anyone. Teddy just laughed.

Because of her head injury, Madame Pomfrey insisted that Lily stay for one more night, at which Lily shared a grimace with her dad. He rolled his eyes but then sobered quickly when Madame Pomfrey turned on him with a fierce expression. Lily laughed.

Eventually, her parents left with hugs and kisses and Teddy and her brothers with just hugs. Lily was sad to see them go but reminded herself that term would be over soon and she would be home for the summer. She drifted off to sleep in the hospital wing, dreaming about greasy-haired potions professors, long-bearded wizards, a battle at Hogwarts, and a young couple that looked quite a lot like her parents.

* * *

**AN- Well, the last one. We're all done, folks. I'd love to know what you all think of the ending, or the story as a whole! Really, any comments at all are well appreciated!**

**And one last huge thanks to my beta, ellaminnowpea (registered with FFN betalisting), is in order, without whom this would be of much lesser quality and probably never have been finished. THANK YOU.**

By suggestion of **FantasyFanatic613 **here is an explanation of the title of the story in case anyone had questions-

The phrase "world enough, and time" is from a poem by Andrew Marvell- _To His Coy Mistress_. The poem itself is not particularly relevant, but the spirit behind that particular part of the poem is, I think, quiet fitting. The idea is that if one had all the time they could want and the world could provide, they could do anything they wanted. And considering that time is used more than once in the story to obtain a goal, I thought it made for a nice title.

**Please review!**


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